Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles : Transcension
by Andrew NDB
Summary: Crossover of the cartoon TMNT, Archie TMNT, Mirage/Image TMNT & the movie TMNT. TMNT from all universes must confront a malevolent figure that threatens all of reality. Even when it is over nothing will ever be the same. See sequel as well, "Deliverance."
1. Prologue

**"Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles : Transcension" **

Prologue

**Mirage/Image Earth (Dimension A); Asia, early Cretaceous Period, Prehistoric B.C.**

"Blasted!" The horned creature trudged through the marsh underbrush, his hooves crunching on the dried, dead leaves beneath him, the fur on his legs catching here and there on low branches and twigs. As he continued his lonesome trek, a soft trembling began to shake the earth, nearly causing him to lose his footing. Swearing under his breath, he ducked behind a giant rock and waited as it shook the nearby trees, causing the inhabiting birds to take flight.

As the shaking grew stronger, he cursed his misfortune. It had been nearly a month since his exile to this godforsaken time from Feudal Japan. He couldn't believe he had let that bitch Renet trick him for a second time! As if his embarrassing defeat to Lord Simultaneous wasn't enough—to say nothing of his previous confrontation in prehistoric times and the later death of his wife, Juliet (even if that had only spared him the trouble of an unpleasant divorce... the lady had been far too attached, really). If only Renet hadn't gotten a hold of that sceptre...

_It's mine! _he thought bitterly. _How dare she take what isn't rightfully hers?_ _As for those damned Turtles... they will pay for their meddling impudence!_

The ground began to rumble now, so fiercely that even the boulder he hid behind shook under the strain. Glancing up, he saw a gigantic beast towering above him. Its massive neck stretched up to the sky, its enormous feet leaving behind gigantic craters in the trembling earth. It moved slowly, but its steps contained such raw power, that he dared not challenge such an animal. He knew from his many travels that it was called a Tyrannosaurus, but this was the first time he'd been this close to one. It was a massive beast, leaving nothing but destruction in its wake. Oh, how he longed for that kind of power! Soon, the beast had passed, and the rumbling faded again into a distant quaking.

Slowly, he rose, and a sense of euphoria spread over him. Something had changed. The air felt... different. He had experienced this shift before. Something in the time continuum... the timestream... was changing...

Suddenly, something Savanti knew could only be a "time hole" appeared, a temporal doorway in the very fabric of time and existence, one which grew and pulsated with an intense spectrum of color and negative light. A hooded figure appeared before him, stepping through the great void. He stared at the cloak skeptically, unable to see whatever face was hidden in the shadows beneath the hood. The figure just stood there for a moment, silent, motionless.

Savanti folded his arms, a symbol of defiance and power. "Who are you?"

The cloaked figure took a step toward him, a step accompanied by the sound of chains dangling. A pointy appendage peeking out from the protection of the hood. "Someone from your past... your future. You may call me 'The Shogun.'"

"Your voice..." Savanti spoke. "Have we met?"

After receiving only the figure's ghostly stare as a reply, he glanced down at the chains that hung from the being's neck, the frivolous trinkets and medallions. _They must be worth fortunes, _Savanti thought greedily. The figure also carried a stone tablet of some kind in its gloved right hand. As he squinted at it, he could make out some sort of ancient writing inscribed into the stone. He couldn't quite decipher the language, but he'd seen something similar before. He figured it to be some form of ancient Hebrew.

The figure noticed Savanti's gaze and could sense his interest. "The Ten Commandments."

Savanti thought he could almost see a flash of grinning white teeth from within the dark folds of the hood.

"And look at this." He held up another prized possession, acting very proud of the old gold goblet he clutched in his hands.

Savanti stared in astonishment at the worn out cup, its once fine finish obviously worn from time and age. "The Holy Grail? But how—"

A low laughter came from within the folds of the cloak. "It has taken me decades, but I have unraveled the secrets of time travel. Temporal physics, mechanics... navigation. I've been to so many places I could only read about before. With my time machine I've been able to collect all of these fine articles and explore many wonderful places... places which I hope to return to some day... after I do what needs to be done."

He stared at the figure skeptically. "Time machine?" Savanti asked. Man-made "time machines" were considered extremely limited by any time traveler with even the most elementary knowledge of temporal manipulation, due to the considerably long travel time experienced by the traveler. "You don't mean you have the Sacred Sands of Time Sceptre... do you?"

"No, I have no scepter, only my time machine... the one I built to find you... _Savanti Romero."_

The horned beast winced, then frowned at the caped being. "And exactly what do you want from me?"

"Your power, the power you are oblivious to yet courses through your veins." He ran a careless, almost disgusted glance over some of his relics. "The power these mere inanimate objects I adorn myself with now do not provide. My time machine has taken me to many an interesting place, but I'm afraid it doesn't contain the power I need to complete my mission on its own. It is mundane."

Savanti scoffed. "And what makes you think that I am willing to share my power, Shogun?"

"I'll make you a deal." The figure drew nearer. "I'll take what I need from you..." he placed his hands on Savanti's head, and could already feel the vibrations coursing through him, "... and _you'll _stay out of my way."

Savanti let out a scream as pain flowed down his spine and throbbed against his temples. The anguish was so great, he didn't even have the strength to fight. As the sensation grew stronger, the figure began to visibly shake, and the hood slipped from its head a little more, revealing that it did indeed bear a horn.

_Oh my god... it's you... you're _me, _aren't you?_

But he never got to ask his question. Instead, his head exploded with throbbing pain, and the world went black.

The figure grinned as the power tingled through him. He felt strong... powerful beyond belief. Now he would be able to do what he'd come here for. He would not fail. He dare not.

Despite his moment of elation, the figure soon frowned. "The power..." he spoke, dissatisfied, "_... not enough."_

Slowly, he lifted up the hem of the cape, revealing a very detailed, ancient spear that hung from a sheath on his calf. He narrowed his eyes as he drew the Spear of Destiny slowly and carefully from its resting place. "I need it all. But I'm afraid, Savanti Romero, for you this must now be the end." The air around him—the pterodactyls, the insects, even the wind ceased all sound as he slowly and very precisely plunged the same spear that pierced Jesus Christ when he was on the cross into Savanti's chest.

"Ended..."

As if the essence, the very soul of Savanti Romero were escaping, wisps and tendrils of energy rose up from the still body. The figure standing over Savanti held his arms apart and seemed to force the energy into himself by sheer force of will, drawing it into every pore of his shrouded body. When there was no more energy left in the withered corpse to draw upon, the figure stood away, satisfied only now.

"... and done."

Folding his arms and enfolding himself with his cloak, the figure wavered and vanished into a chronal mottling of his own will's creation. His mission would begin in earnest now.

It was time to set the wrong things right.

* * *

NOTE : See (Mirage) _TMNT_ Vol. 1, #46 & 47 for the story of Savanti Romero's second exile to prehistoric times.


	2. Chapter 1 : Dissolution

**"Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles : Transcension"**

**Chapter One  
D I S S OL U T I O N**

**Mirage/Image Earth (Dimension A); New York City, December 19TH, 1990 A.D.**

"How do you like that? I beat your ass."

"Yep," Mike said, putting his controller down, yawning, stretching, and giving a half-hearted look at Raph. He had just beaten him in Round 3 of what could be considered an intense _Street Fighter II_ bout on April and Casey's new Super Nintendo. "You sure did."

Year after year, video games just kept getting better and better; year after year, the Turtles' rivalry on the latest fighting games kept growing with it. Leonardo couldn't help but wonder why his brothers couldn't just put their controllers down and take their fight to the mat in the next room... at least they would be getting some exercise and practice.

"You guys done?" Donatello asked, not even bothering to look up from the latest issue of _Computer Graphic World._ "Can I play my _Final Fantasy II_ now?"

Raph ignored him, putting down his controller as well. After a moment of silence all four of the brothers in the room could feel, he spoke, "You know, this really sucks."

"Yep," Mike agreed with his best friend, distractedly stroking Klunk, his ever-loyal gray pet cat who yet again sought attention.

"You know, maybe it's just your attitude that sucks, guys," Donatello chimed in. "Ever think of that? Okay, so maybe there hasn't been any bad guys banging down our door trying to kill us for a while... that doesn't have to be our whole lives, you know. Okay, Pimiko is still expecting us to help her take down the Lady Shredder one of these days—and I know we probably owe her some payback—but look, I hang out with my buddy Chang Lao from time to time, Mikey's got his girlfriend and seems to have bonded with little Shadow, Raphael has his meetings with Lucindr—"

"Oh, shut up, Donny," Raph spat. "Read your magazine."

It was happening again.

Leonardo sat alone at the dining table, sparing a painful look at his brothers every so often. They were bored and restless, surely, but for some time now there had been something about them that had been bothering him greatly in a way he could only discuss with his sensei. It was something he could no longer overlook, even with Splinter around again after his time as a rabid bat.

They were growing apart. It was a truth that couldn't be ignored anymore.

It had happened before once. Each of the Turtles had moved into his own space: Raph into a cathedral, Don and Splinter at Casey's Northampton farmhouse, Mike with April and Casey, and Leo alone in the sewers. It was only by external circumstance—chiefly the vengeful schemes of the then-cyborg Dr. Baxter Stockman—that they had been brought back together. And now it was happening again.

Before Leo could dwell on it any longer, a swirling void tore itself wide and free over the table in the middle of the room. Through it hovered a familiar slender figure, long blond hair streaming behind her: Renet Tilley, the time-traveling girl with whom they had shared many adventures with in the past.

"Hey, guys!"

Klunk hissed and darted out of Mike's lap as he started to stand up. "Renet?" Mike called, a little unsure, given her appearance. "Renet!" he quickly decided afterward.

The youthful, white-robed woman smiled. The swirling void above her remained as she spoke, "Yep, it's me. Jeeze, this must be hella confusing for you guys—first two times that I see you I'm just some ditzy apprentice, then I show up as I do now—the Mistress of Time—when we faced Savanti Juliet, and then I show up to help you guys face Savanti Romero in 1373 Feudal Japan all younger looking."

"Ahhh," Donatello sighed, his interest piqued. "The version of yourself that came with us to Feudal Japan was younger than the one that helped us take out Savanti Juliet, even if we encountered that version _after_ the Juliet confrontation."

Renet put a finger to her lip as she thought about it. "Um, yes. A version older than the one that saw you in our first two meetings, but not quite Mistress of Time yet."

"Explains why you didn't recognize Splinter last time we saw you when you had just met him during the Juliet ordeal," noted Leo.

"Fascinating," said Don.

"In other words, the last time my present self saw you was when we kicked Juliet's butt." Renet smiled timidly. "As I told you then, the mantle of Master of Time has been mine since Lord Simultaneous—er, just Marcus Sandelheim now—has retired to his home in Rome, 180 B.C." The woman giggled. "Hail Lord Renet Tilley, Supreme Timestress, Mistress of Time, and overseer of the timestream. Or something."

"So wassup, Renet?" Mike asked, good-naturedly. "Boy have I got some st—"

"You didn't come here to reminisce, did you, Renet?" Leo shot, his gaze more than slightly on the cold side. When Renet made an appearance, it was never to catch up on the proverbial "old times"—she needed their help, and he knew it had to be urgent.

Where she had seemed carefree and eager to engage her old friends in small talk a moment before, a sudden serious sense befell her now. "No," she acknowledged. "No, I didn't. As Mistress of Time, I find myself faced with a problem the, ah, magnitude of which I don't know if I can handle alone... under the circumstances..."

"Circumstances...?"

"A being has been going century to century, era to era robbing historical and mystic artifacts from their natural time," she explained. "For what purpose I can't fathom, but I was unable to undo the damage to the timestream." Renet gave a shrug. "Temporay solution to a... bigger problem."

"And this being has what to do with us?" Raph snarled.

The still youthful-looking woman put on an expression of patience. "Recently this being traveled to prehistoric times. It traveled to a point in time I can pinpoint to just about one month after the point I banished Savanti Romero to, and it confronted him. It then absorbed Savanti's power... and then it killed him."

Leo winced. After the now-dead Oroku Saki, Savanti Romero had been one of their oldest and most malevolent villains. "Savanti Romero... he's _dead?"_

"Shit, and I didn't get a piece of the action?" Raph grumbled.

"The being now bears all the inherent sorcerous energies and mystic abilities that had been at Savanti's disposal. I can only imagine he used it to manually slip into the timestream... and break into the 79TH Level of Null-Time."

"Isn't that where you said you were from?" Mike wondered.

Renet nodded. "That's why I can't fix time. Even as Mistress of Time, I'm kinda sorta limited to traveling to the set cycles and twists throughout the timestream without the Sceptre or any of Marcus' digital technology. Or access to the 79TH."

"So why not just use the Sceptre or that digital stuff?"

"Because, Leonardo, when I was returning to the 79TH Level after witnessing the fate of Savanti Romero from afar, my temporal instruments—including the Sceptre—all vanished from my possession and I found myself hurled into the timestream. You see, this being had beaten me to the 79TH and had taken the entire realm."

Raph grunted. "Isn't that just the shit..."

"Oh yeah—it's the kinda 'shit' that can just ruin a girl's Friday night," Renet agreed with a slight smile. "Well, anyways, from the timestream I was able to open a time hole to here. 1988... January, right?"

"Uh, December... 1990. Almost 1991."

"Oh." Renet bit her lip. "Damn. Overshot. Guess that explains why Leo's missing a hand, Raph's got an eyepatch, and Donny's... a cyborg?"

"It's..." Donatello nodded his partially metallic-plated head. The weary gaze of the four brothers and the pain behind them told the tale. "It's been a rough couple of years."

"I've been the lucky one," Mike said. "It's only a matter of time before I'm castrated or something, I guess,"

"Oh, Mike... well, I tell you guys what... don't worry, 'cause... at the risk of telling you too much of the future, none of that bad stuff that's happened to you is gonna be permanent!"

Leonardo and Donatello exchanged a wide-eyed look.

"But anyhoo..." Renet forced herself to be serious once more. "But as to why I came here... I do need your help. I think I can channel enough temporal energy to redirect the time hole I just came from back to the 79TH Level, maybe buffet the being's temporal feedback discharge that threw me back into the timestream when I tried to return there last time. But I would be more or less powerless upon arrival—that's where you guys would come in." She sighed. "From the 79TH Level, with the power the being is harnessing and clearly understands, there is no limit to the amount of damage that could be done to the timestream. It could be twisted, distorted, warped to the being's whim, recreated in its image, or destroyed altogether. As Mistress of Time, successor of Lord Simultaneous, it is my duty to stop this at all costs. Will you come with me?"

"We will," Leo answered for all of his brothers. He knew there was no way any of them could say no. Not with what was at stake.

Mike started to go to the guest bedroom, saying behind him, "Just let me tell Splinter we're off to save the universe real quic—"

"Let him sleep," Leo admonished. "We have to leave—_now."_

"Then follow me." With that and a grateful sigh, Renet started to hover back up to the still-open and swirling time hole.

Raph looked to his brothers—Mike in front of the TV, Don with his magazine, and Leo by himself at the dining table, shining one of his katana with a rag. Deciding Leo was right, he muttered to the bemusement of at least Mike and Don, "Fuck this."

"Coming?" Renet called, her voice distorted by her proximity to the time hole.

The Turtles exchanged a glance, then made a jump for it after Renet.

The front door opened, Casey Jones coming in first, grocery bags in hand. His longtime girlfriend, April O'Neil, was shortly behind, their four year-old surrogate daughter, Shadow Jones, holding her hand.

"Guys? Guys!" Casey shouted. After a couple moments of silence, he shrugged at April. "Huh. Guess we missed them."

* * *

**The 79TH Level of Null-Time (Dimension Null )**

From the grassy hillside the five travelers stood upon, a picturesque landscape stretched out before them of much grass, shrubbery, and a wealth of Greek-like stone structures and residences. The sea could be seen beyond the shores, perhaps the Mediterranean or the Tyrrhenian. The sun was there, bearing down from the clear, vibrantly blue sky, though hanging as a dead eye above the cityscape.

The Turtles and Renet started down a central cobble road when the effects of their time travel trip ebbed. There were statues abroad along their way, each one meticulously sculpted. The Turtles couldn't help but take notice of the people they passed of the ancient city they found themselves in—they were all frozen. Each person stopped dead in time in the middle of whatever they were doing or wherever they were going.

"'The 79TH Level of Null-Time,' eh?" Mike spoke, walking behind Leo and Renet. "Not quite like I pictured it."

Renet turned a glance. "Unless you happened to have been picturing a 137 B.C. Rome frozen in time, I'm not surprised."

"Incredible..." Don breathed, more than a little in awe as he continued to take in his historic surroundings, "... the Great Roman Republic..."

"Everyone in this Null-Time zone is frozen except for the travelers which, aside from you guys and myself, consists of only the Council of the 79TH Level, all of whom living in the Palisade. That's where we're going." _Because that's where It's waiting,_ was the grim, unspoken understanding.

"What exactly is a level of 'Null-Time'?" Leo asked, more out of boredom than any genuine interest.

"Well, I'd have to explain to you a little about the timestream for you to understand," Renet began before explaining, "The timestream is made up primarily of cycles and twists, then the individual years within each twist. Twists in the 'Prime' Cycle—which begins in 387 B.C. and goes on past the twenty-ninth century and ends at the End of Time—are 125 years each. Think of the timestream as a garden hose coiled up, with each coil laying on top of the next. Like a large, neatly stacked, coiled up garden hose. And that's just the way time works. Coiled up in twists and cycles, just like a coiled-up garden hose."

"I think I get it!" Donatello spouted. "The twists in cycles... they're the increments in which time travel normally happens without getting into traveling to specific years within the twists."

"That's right. Now let's say the year 137 B.C. is one of those twists, Twist Q. From it, one can travel 'down' to Twist R in 262 B.C., or 'up' to Twist P in 12 B.C. Now imagine, as such, one could travel to the 'side.' This would take the traveller to 'Side-Time,' or a Null-Time zone. A sort of gap between the spiraling tubes. That's what the 79TH is, only it's a Null-Time Level like no other, as it overlooks all cycles and twists in the timestream."

"That's... incredible, Renet." Donatello was clearly lost in wonder.

"Look, you guys are boring the shit out of me," Raph said. "We came here to kick ass, not get some lame-ass science fiction lecture."

Raphael's angry comment killed the conversation for several minutes, the five continuing on their way on foot.

"What else can you tell us about this being, Renet?" Don asked, at last breaking the silence. "Who is it, and where does it from from?"

"I'm trusting it's safe to assume normal people don't just go running rampant through time killing our arch-enemies and messing with the timestream on a regular basis," Leonardo added to some sarcasm.

"I know very little of it, Leo, save that I believe it comes from sometime in the twenty-first century, as that was the era where I detected the afterenergies of its time machine was constructed, or at least activated."

"It built a time machine?"

"Only to allow it to gather up all the historical artifacts from the past, and to go back in time and take Savanti Romero's power. Now it doesn't need the machine anymore... with the power it's harnessing—both within and from the instruments it holds—it can time travel at will." Renet paused. "From what I have gathered in my monitoring of the being, it is somehow connected to you guys... but how I don't know. My studies of the twenty-first century have been neglected in my pursuit of later centuries lore and of what may or may not be beyond the Third Millennial Barrier."

Raph thought about it, but ultimately came up empty offhand. "Somehow connected to us... someone from the future... who the hell do we know in the future?"

"Doesn't have to be someone from the future," Don said. "Could be someone we know now or have known in the past... someone who lives into the twenty-first century to build their time machine. Or maybe it is a villain we haven't met yet, but will in our future, who could be trying to... oh, hell, who knows?"

The road to the Palisade was a winding one, with twists and turns around many houses and miscellaneous structures along the way. It was after making their way over another hillside—by now their walking distance having reached some two miles—that they caught their first glimpse of the Palisade.

Apparently erected from the foundation of what appeared to be some form of Roman gladiatorial arena, the Palisade stood, putting New York's skyscrapers easily to shame. Reflecting the odd light of the still sun off the crystalline shards that were spread out about the majestically designed structure's stone walls, it truly did reach to the sky.

"What is this," Raphael asked, gazing up at its peak, "the friggin' _Neverending Story_ now?"

"Shut up, Raph," Leo snapped.

"Hey, look, fearless leader, I don't need to hear t—"

"Just shut up," Leo pressed. Raph shook his head, but decided to keep his mouth shut.

Don pointed ahead, looking to Renet. "Is that the Palisade, Renet?"

"Sure is."

"It's beautiful..." Don sighed. "But doesn't it distort our history by having it built here, in 137 B.C.?"

"Oh, no. As I said, this is 137 B.C., but a Null-Time zone facsimile of 137 B.C. It's a frozen moment in time—a snapshot, I suppose—but it is outside the flow of the timestream."

Don smiled, that look of wonder coming back to his face. "There's... so much you can tell me..."

"I grew up here, you know. My parents were from sometime past the Third Millennial Barrier, which is the date no time traveler including myself can go beyond—June 10TH, 2986 A.D. Never have really been sure about Mom and Dad; why they wanted to get rid of me by apprenticing me off to Marcus in this level of Null-Time. Marcus said they told him they wanted me to learn responsibility... too bad they never considered me theirs."

"Maybe it was your destiny," suggested Don. "Maybe they knew."

"Yeah, Donny... maybe..."

And so they moved along the last leg of their walk over the countryside.

"Like a coliseum..." noted Don, taking a second to look up at the perfectly-aligned pillars that made up the walls of the arena-like structure that encircled the Palisade. Like some avid tourist, he zoomed in with his cybernetic eyepiece to take it all in.

Stepping across the gravel of the arena's ground level, stopping only to pass gazes at the skeletons of fallen Roman warriors, still proudly clad in the armor they took to their deaths, the group reached the twenty foot tall gate to the Palisade.

Leo stopped. He spoke, turning his head only a notch, "Prepare yourselves, my brothers."

The other Turtles did as they were told, drawing their weapons. Donatello morphed his arm into a vicious-looking scythe.

"Open sesame." With the touch of Renet's palm to its amber surface, the grandiose double-doors of the gate started sliding open, dust arising as they scraped inward.

The five gazed into the relative darkness within, seeing only an eerie greenish hue dimly illuminating the stone corridor ahead. As they entered fully, their bodies and muscles poised for anything, the doors slammed shut behind them.

Raph adjusted his eyepatch, grimacing behind him. "Jee, that wasn't predictable at all." A look from Leo told him to keep quiet, which he did.

Then the voice.

"I have been expecting you."

It seemed to come from everywhere. Everywhere... all at once. It seemed familiar in some way to the Turtles, but was filtered, distorted, and perhaps deepened by some means.

"He is here, all right," Renet said. "He's probably in the council chamber..." Not only was she decidedly suppressing some measure of worry, it seemed the fear within her was building. "I'll show you guys the way. C'mon."

Through a series of winding staircases they went up, before they came to an open stone chamber. Sunbeams filled the stained-glass windows, painting squares of slanted light across the oval table that rested in the center of the chamber.

"B-bodies..." Renet muttered, her mouth quivering as she looked around the chamber. Shriveled, battered corpses in withered robes lay strewn about the chamber. Their blood was spattered across much of the room, a pool atop the table still dripping down. "Lord Gnostis... Garvan... Cristie... _Timagetus_... my god, the Council of the 79TH Level... they're all..."

"They're all dead," the voice finished for her. Only now the voice was noticeably nearer now, and coming from the dark throne at the back of the chamber. "I killed them myself. Slit their throats, crushed their bones... took their power."

"You... you _murderer!" _Renet stammered. "The Council watched over the entire timestream... they were my friends... my family... my..."

"They're all dead," the voice repeated.

Leonardo squinted at the shadowy figure on the throne. It was hunched over, evidently under a cloak and holding what looked like Renet's Sacred Sands of Time Sceptre. Metal and gold reflected off of various parts of the figure's body. "Who are you?"

"I am the Shogun. The vindicator of a great wrong... one I intend to set right."

Renet made a frantic gesture at the figure, frustrated. "First you travel all over time, stealing historical artifacts... then you kill Savanti Romero... then you kill these men... why? For what _purpose?_ Just what are you trying to set right? Don't you understand you could destroy reality as we know it?"

"Reality is but in the mind's eye..." the figure replied, calmly, confidently, "... the eye of the beholder, and I am the beholder. Time is a tool. Existence can be altered... reshaped in any way I please." He paused. "From this level of Null-Time I have looked at time and existence from all angles, and know what needs to be done to reshape it in the necessary way."

Renet faltered. The helplessness was plain to be seen on her face. "You're... you're going to alter history?"

"In a sense, but that would be playing upon too many variables." The voice was still sure; resolute. "To go back in time and change what happened, to right the wrongs in my life... that would be child's play. Why stop there? Why stop, when I have the power to make everything right? No, my friends, I am opening the transdimensional gateways. A myriad of infinite realities in alternate dimensions can be flipped through at my leisure. I have all of eternity to find the right one to mold and superimpose as the one true reality... which I can and will oversee as its guardian." The Shogun's voice changed, becoming almost inaudible as he added, "I will make sure things go right this time... I will make sure things happen as they should. I will _not _fail again."

After a beat, Leonardo stepped before his brothers. His katana were not drawn, but he seemed poised enough to draw them at any moment if need be. "You're playing God, Shogun. Give it up."

"How can you stop he who is righteous?" the Shogun asked. Leo thought he caught a glimpse of shiny, jagged teeth on a pale white face beneath the Shogun's thick hood.

_Wait..._ Leo thought, ... _not a face at all. A mask! This Shogun hides his face._

It appeared to be a Japanese _noh_ mask, with the traditional demonic grin etched onto it. Savanti Romero once wore one like that, Leo recalled.

"Who are _you_ to say what is just?" the Shogun questioned Leo. "You know nothing... you _are_ nothing. Nothing at all... to me."

Raphael stepped in, his hands gripping his sai tightly, ready to start cutting into his enemy at the earliest opportunity. "If it's a fight you want, don't worry. We were gonna kick your ass anyway."

"I think not." The Shogun's deep, coolly modulated voice sounded almost amused now. "To kill you would be trite, and otherwise premature. Perhaps I should... oh my... yes... I should have thought of this sooner." A hoarse chuckle arose from the Shogun suddenly, as he raised a hand in a conspicuous motion, then waved it from one side to the other in front of the Turtles and Renet. "You five..." Before their befuddled, panicked glances in the final moment they had before a wave of transdimensional pseudo-light and energy enveloped them, they found themselves wrenched from the very floor they stood upon. They simply disappeared. "... I banish."

Alone once again in the council chamber, his only company the bodies of the Council of the 79TH Level now, the Shogun stood up from his throne. Enfolding himself with his cloak once more, he prepared to once again enter the timestream. His work in the 79TH was done, after all—the necessary power and conduits were all his now. It was time to move on to the next phase of his mission.

There would be no interference now.

* * *

NOTE : Refer to Palladium Books' "Transdimensional TMNT" sourcebook for its detailed explanations on time/dimensional travel and more.


	3. Chapter 2 : The Next Mutation

**"Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles : Transcension"**

**Chapter Two  
T H E  
N E X T  
M U T A T I O N**

**Live-Action Earth (Dimension B); New York City, December 19TH, 1997 A.D.**

"Who are you? Who sent you here?" Leo held the odd-looking katana to the Turtle's throat, pinning him in place on the ground.

"It's one of Quease's clones again," Don remarked, studying him. "It _has_ to be."

Leo narrowed his eyes and looked him over once again. "No." Everything about him looked so real, so natural. "No, I don't think so..."

Mike finished the sentence for him, "This one looks genuine." He glanced at Raph. "Hey, it's got _your_ color bandanna on..."

While the others had been practicing, this Turtle imposter had seemed to just fall on them from a ripple the sky. But how exactly did it get here, and where had it come from? Donatello had gone over all the possibilities, but he just couldn't come up with a concrete, scientific answer. Of course, were she around, Venus would probably insist that it was magic.

As the others were deliberating, the red-bandannaed Michaelangelo found his opportunity to make his move. In a swift motion, he shoved the blade aside, flipped backward, and was on his feet facing them.

"Hey, it's mobile!" the one in the orange mask shouted.

Michaelangelo rubbed his head. "Jeeze, guys, what gives?" But as he looked closer, he noticed that these were not his brothers, but some very strange looking Turtles in different -colored masks, wearing letters on their belts and/or straps. The only one of them in red shot him an evil stare.

"Who are you? Where'd you come from?"

"My name's Michaelangelo... I'm a Ninja Turtle, and—"

"Wait a minute... hold on!" The orange-masked one seemed a little upset. _"I'm_ Michaelangelo!"

"Who are you working for?" the blue-masked one asked coolly.

Michaelangelo's head was spinning. Perhaps that bump on the head had done more damage than he'd thought. Or maybe the time or dimensional travel had messed with his brain. _Wait a minute! Dimensional travel—that's it! I'm in an alternate dimension._ Too many bad science fiction novels and films came to his mind. "What day is it? What year is it?"

"December 19th, 1997—your last day on Earth if you don't tell us who the heck—"

"Raph..." The blue-masked Turtle held out a hand, stopping him.

Michaelangelo stared at them in disbelief. _"Raph?_ Did you say Raph?"

"That's my name," the red-masked one hissed.

"On the contrary, buddy." The voice from behind caught everyone's attention, and when they turned around, they found themselves facing another red masked Turtle who looked strikingly similar to the one that had fallen on them just moments ago. This one had no bandanna, but instead had an eyepatch over his left eye.

"Raph!" Michaelangelo grinned. "So he didn't send me here alone..." _But Leo... Donny... Renet... if Raph and I are here, what happened to them? Where are they?_

"Would someone like to tell me what the heck's going on here?" the blue masked one stood eyeing them skeptically, his fists on his hips.

"You tell me." The second displaced Turtle went to join the first. "One minute we were in the 79TH Level of Null-Time, and then suddenly I was face first in a pile of dust'n shit in this crazy place."

Michaelangelo buried his face in his hands, rubbing it for a moment, muttering, "An alternate dimension..."

"Turtles from an alternate dimension?" orange masked Mike asked, rubbing his temples. "Stranger things have happened, I guess."

Raphael stared at his surroundings. The walls were made of brick, the floor of concrete, not too much different from their current cemetery mausoleum den back home. At the far end, a ladder stretched high above them, probably leading to the world above. Suddenly, recognition struck him. _A sewer... this is a sewer..._

But not any sewer—a subway station, either abandoned or otherwise left unfinished. Cars of a train still on its tracks seemed to have been made into the dwellings of the Turtles of this dimension.

"Uh, nice place, guys..." Michaelangelo began to walk slowly around the room, noticing the empty pizza boxes and weapons strewn all over the place. It almost reminded him of the lair he had grown up in back home in the sewers, except this was a disaster area. Blankets, dirty dishes, and some indistinguishable items covered every inch of the place. Splinter would have never approved of such disorder. "You always lived here?"

"Not always," Michaelangelo's orange-masked counterpart replied. "We did grow up in a pretty bogus sewer den... then we lived for a while in April's country home after her store burned down—"

"Your April had her store burned down, too? Ours did, too. By the Shredder?"

"Nope, but I'm sure he ordered it," the purple-masked one answered. "It was Tatsu and his Foot thugs."

Raphael and Michaelangelo shook their heads, asking simultaneously: "Tatsu?"

"Big bald guy," Don continued. "Bad attitude; not big on words. Shredder's right hand man for a while. Not sure what happened to him."

"So you guys killed Shredder, too?" Raphael asked the Turtles of this dimension.

"Not exactly," Leonardo responded. "Splinter sort of killed him the first time... but he wasn't really dead. He came back, then mutated himself into, well, a SuperShredder in a club Vanilla Ice was performing at."

"You're kidding..."

"No, he really did become a SuperShred—"

"No... _Vanilla Ice?"_

Leo shrugged. "I guess the Foot found him afterward and reversed the mutagen in his bloodstream like we did to Tokka and Rahzar... made him normal again. Last we saw of him he was a catatonic wreck torn into two personalities—the Shredder and Oroku Saki."

"Aw, shit, man," Raphael mused. "We killed Shredder for reals twice. Blew him up real good the first time, then fearless leader Leo chopped his fucking head off the second three years later." Raphael chuckled, debating whether or not he should mention that in his dimension—reality—he had taken on the mantle of the Shredder.

This dimension's Turtles seemed taken aback by Raphael's words. Leonardo was the one to ask the question they all pondered: "You Turtles... kill?"

"We're ninja," Raphael answered without shame. "Ninja kill. Or is the definition of ninja different in this whacked out dimension?"

Leonardo winced. "That's... not what Master Splinter taught us... he taught us—"

"Whatever, man," grumbled Raphael. He started pacing around, starting to look restless. "You know, this place is a real dump. Who's your decorator, Ghandi?"

The one in the tattered red mask pushed past the others and stared Raphael coldly in the face. "What did you say?"

Raphael stood his ground, a tight scowl spreading over his lips. "I said this place sucks."

"Hey, One Eye." The red masked one pulled out a double sai staff, holding it up so the light reflected off its tip, as if to emphasize his point. He snapped it open, taking a sai in each hand. "No one comes into my home and degrades it. Take that back."

"Oh yeah? And what are you gonna do if I don't?"

"I'm gonna run you through, and use you as a wall ornament."

"You and what army?" Raphael too, pulled out his weapons. "Don't forget which one of us is willing to kill."

Michaelangelo stared from one to the other, realizing with awe, that in this angered state, it was actually hard to tell the two apart, aside from a few physical characteristics. The other Turtle was a little taller, and his forearms and ankles were covered with a heavy white lacing. His bandana was torn and tattered, possibly from battle. But their angered expressions matched almost perfectly.

"Hold on, Raph." The blue masked one tugged his comrade by the arm, and reluctantly, he allowed himself to be pulled away.

The two groups stared at one another for a while, each scrutinizing the other, trying to find an answer to this maddening puzzle. _What were these other Turtles doing here? Where had they come from? Who were they?_

Finally the blue masked one spoke up. "Okay, look. This isn't getting us anywhere. Now, you two seem like reasonable Turtles. Why don't you tell us who you really are and how you got here?"

Michaelangelo decided that he better be the one to explain this whole thing. Raphael seemed to be very close to losing his patience entirely. He explained about Renet, about the time travel, about their trip to the 79TH Level. He told them about their discovery of the Shogun, how somehow familiar he seemed. He explained the Shogun's plans and the events that took place in the 79TH Level leading to their "banishment," evidently to the alternate dimension Michaelangelo and Raphael now found themselves in. He even talked about their own master Splinter and everything that led up to their mutation.

"That cinches it..." Donatello stared at them in awe. "These guys aren't clones, they're _us."_

He knew his friend was right. There was no way that these guys could have possibly known all they'd told him about their master and their transformations otherwise. One of the only discrepancies was their relation. This Turtle claimed they were brothers, but it had been made clear to him by both Don and Master Splinter that they weren't of the same blood. Another discrepancy was their age—Michaelangelo and Raphael were nineteen in their reality, but the Turtles in this dimension were seventeen... though it could be attributed to the apparent fact that not only had the two Turtles been thrown into an alternate dimension, but seven years into the future. He should have made the connection earlier. December 19th, 1997 one of the native Turtles had said earlier... it was December 19th, 1990 in Raphael and Michaelangelo's reality.

But no matter. If their story was true, they had been taken from their own time and dimension and sent here, which also meant that the whole timestream, if not the fabric of material reality itself, could be in great danger. But why? Why had they been sent here of all places, to face another version of themselves? And what would happen to history now that they had?

"This is too weird," the orange-masked Turtle exclaimed. "Oh well..." he held out a hand to his new found friends. "I'm Michaelangelo. But you can call me Mikey."

Michaelangelo stared at his counterpart thoughtfully. He seemed a little overly dramatic, almost to the point of annoyance. He was sure glad that this—hopefully—wasn't his permanent dimension. Otherwise, he might drive his own self crazy! Nevertheless, he seemed genuine and witty, two things he admired in himself.

"Hi, Mike, nice to meet you." He shook the other's hand. "I'm Michaelangelo, too. For the sake of our sanity, why don't you call me Michaelangelo and I'll call you Mike?"

The Turtle agreed, and proceeded to introduce himself to Raphael.

The red-masked one was the last to approach the new Turtles, and he did so cautiously. "I still don't know if I trust you guys, but if you really _are_ us, then I guess I should say 'welcome to our humble abode.'"

As Raphael shook his counterpart's hand, a weird feeling flowed through him. This was like looking into a mirror of his very soul. He could see himself now in a way that he never had before, and it both frightened and amused him.

Their introductions were broken suddenly, as the lair's alarm system began to sound. Michaelangelo stared at the flashing police lights in fascination for a moment. _Wonder how they got that down here. Hmmm... maybe I could convince Donatello to put one of those in the lair back home..._

"Don," Leo asked quickly. "What's going on? Is someone close to the lair?"

"I'll check it out on my Turtle-fied Eye in the Sky." The purple masked turtle sat down in front of a strange looking, souped-up computer monitor and began to type on the keyboard. "Cripes, it's the Dragon Lord!" he breathed. "He's close to the lair, but not down here in the sewers. Looks like he's above..."

"Can you pinpoint his location?"

The Turtle typed a few more things into the computer, watching anxiously as the bright dot moved quickly to the north. "It looks like he's moving toward the old museum on 132nd street."

"Well, what're we waiting for? Let's book!" Raph grabbed up a pole with a sai at each end. Raphael couldn't help but laugh a little. The weapon looked utterly ridiculous.

"Mike, go tell Splinter and get Venus."

Mike scooted quickly from the room.

_Venus?_ Raphael thought, _Who the hell is that? Their chimpanzee sidekick?_

He found out soon enough, when this dimension's Mike reappeared with another Turtle right behind him.

"Whoa... who's the babe?" Michaelangelo gasped. Aside from an embarrassing occasion when the shapeshifter called Lurch briefly turned into one and made out with him, he had never seen a female mutant Turtle before and quite frankly, it fascinated him.

"This is Venus DeMilo, otherwise known as Mei Pieh Chi," Leonardo introduced quickly.

"Hello," the light blue bandannaed female Turtle said gracefully, if not a little confused. "It is nice to meet you... but please, do not refer to me as 'babe.' Or 'hottie,' for that matter."

"Uhhh... sorry..." Michaelangelo blushed.

_A female Turtle?_ Raphael thought to himself. _With tits? Man, now I've seen everything!_

"We'll have more time for introductions later. Right now, we have to stop the Dragon Lord!"

"Wait a minute! Who the hell is this Dragon Lord, and why the hell should we help you?" Raphael demanded. He thought briefly of his brothers' nemesis, the Warlord Go-Komodo, whose henchmen referred to as "The Dragonlord," but didn't think the Turtles he was in the company of now meant the same guy.

"Raph, they're _us,"_ Mike observed. "Their enemies are our enemies."

"The Dragon Lord is a powerful adversary," Leo said. "If you help us defeat him, I swear that we will do what we can to help you defeat this... Shogun... and return home."

Leonardo had never been one to go back on his promises. After a moment of deliberation, Raphael finally agreed.

As they hurried out into the sewer tunnels, Michaelangelo stared after Venus, and then glanced excitedly at Raphael. "Wow... we certainly don't have one of _those_ at home!"

* * *

"Jeeze... you guys have a Hummer?" Mike stared at the vehicle in awe. "Master Splinter would never let us have a car..." He thought better of mentioning their aircar, which had once nearly gotten them in an extreme amount of trouble when they had been seen landing it in their Westwood Cemetery lair. "We're ninja; we move with the night... and fade away into it..."

"Yeah, well, he doesn't really like the idea of _us_ having one either, but he's gotta admit, it sure helps us get around!" Leo hopped in the driver's seat and started up the engine as Michaelangelo watched the others battle for a spot in the front seat.

As soon as Raphael spotted Raph with his motorcycle, Michaelangelo knew there was going to be trouble.

"Wait a minute... you have a bike?"

Raph grinned at his counterpart, who stood there in complete awe over the massive machine. "Yeah...she's a 'beaut, isn't she?"

"Wait... this ain't no fair! You guys get all the cool shit, and we're stuck back in our time with nothing but our feet and our weapons! What gives?"

Raph shrugged and started up the motorcycle. "Them's the breaks, I guess. You should see the anti-vampire gear we used on Vam Mi."

Raphael laid his hands on the handle bars. "Lemme ride this muther."

"I don't think so." Raph gave him a cocky look.

"Look, I'm not leaving here unless it's on _this."_

"Fine," Raph snarled. "Goodbye."

"You're not listening to me..." Raphael held his grip on the motorcycle.

"Get your hands off my bike!" Raph yelled.

"It's just as much my bike as it is yours. I'm _you,_ remember?

An argument ensued, which turned into shoving, which turned into the tipping of the motorcycle.

"You're gonna pay for that..." Raph hissed.

Finally, Leo stepped in. "Knock it off, both of you! We're supposed to be trailing the Dragon Lord, not fighting amongst ourselves." Suddenly, that idea seemed so bizarre—fighting with one's own self.

"Come on, Raphael," Michaelangelo pleaded. "We don't belong here. We need to help these guys and find a way out of here. You do want to go home, don't ya?"

Raphael mumbled something inaudible, and stormed off toward the Hummer to join the others. "Fine. But then I get to sit next to _her."_ He found a spot in the back right next to Venus.

Raph glared as he picked up the bike, but then, noticing no damage, a satisfied smirk spread across his face.

Leo glanced over at Michaelangelo and noticed his seat belt wasn't fastened. "A good ninja always buckles up," he instructed.

Michaelangelo forced a smile and glanced back at Raphael, who was rolling his eyes and murmuring "what the _fuck?"_ This Leonardo was even more annoying than the one back home.

"Raph'n Roll, baby!" Raph shouted as he peeled out on the motorcycle.

"Yeah!" Don shouted. "We're gonna show the Dragon Lord some Total Turtlefication!"

"It's mega-shellage time!"

"Mess with the green and it's gonna get mean!"

Raphael itched under his eyepatch, giving Michaelangelo a curious frown. Michaelangelo just shrugged.

* * *

The museum was dark and quiet. Beams of light lit up the room, casting orange shadows on the expensive paintings and sculptures. The crackle and hum from the security system was the only sound. Leo glanced to Don, who nodded in return. He knew what to do. Carefully and quietly, he rushed away, in search of the control panel. After a few moments of careful testing and analyzing, Don found the correct switch and pushed it. Dim lights turned on suddenly, and the laser beams fizzled out.

They glanced around carefully, searching for signs of their enemy. All was quiet—deadly quiet in fact, and Raphael didn't like it.

"Looking for me?" a deep, menacing voice said from behind them. They whirled around, and Michaelangelo and Raphael saw one of the craziest sights they'd ever seen. It was a six foot tall talking dragon man, reminding the two a little bit of King Komodo back home. His skin was reptilian green, his eyes the color of sapphires, and he wore his black hair in a ponytail down the back of his neck. He was wearing some form of protective armor, and he wielded a sword. A funny looking, smaller dragon creature rested on his shoulder, a silly grin showing off his many sharp teeth.

Leo drew his sword and held it steady in front of him. "You're not going to win this time, Dragon Lord."

The Dragon Lord laughed, shaking visibly as he did so. "Not only am I going to win, but I will have you on my dinner plate tonight for my next meal!"

As he began to cackle again, Raphael exchanged curious frowns with Michaelangelo. They had fought some pretty cheesy villains before, but this guy took the cake.

"Ohhh... majesty, can we eat them now? Just a little taste, perhaps?" The little dragon at his shoulder squealed in a high-pitched, irritatingly scratchy voice.

"Silence, Wicke! First we destroy them... then we eat."

Raphael pulled his sai from his belt and stepped up to face the enemy. "Sorry, but you ain't eatin' nothing, shitface. In fact, I doubt you'll even be around to _see_ your next meal."

The Dragon Lord stared at him in confusion and then at his comrades. There were now seven Turtles instead of five. Were they multiplying? Was he hallucinating? Where had the other two come from? It didn't matter. This defeat would be even more glorious than he'd hoped. He would be able to absorb the power of seven mutants instead of five.

The seven Turtles stood in ready mode, preparing for the battle. Raphael figured taking out this dragon guy would be easy. He hadn't expected a whole army of black-clad Rank warriors to scurry in from the shadows.

"Get them!" the Dragon Lord shouted.

Suddenly, the swarm of green-faced ninjas were upon them.

"It's Green Time!" the five shouted. Michaelangelo shot Raphael an amused, questioning look. Raphael just grinned and shook his head.

The battle broke out. Raphael and Michaelangelo noticed that the other Turtles didn't use their weapons much. They seemed to prefer their bare hands. Raphael, however, enjoyed working with his sai, and decided that their triumph would be much quicker if he used them. Besides, as Raphael rationalized it, a dead enemy doesn't come back for more. Michaelangelo also wielded his nunchuks, which Mike watched him use in interest. His counterpart used nightstick-like tonfa, which were much more restrictive. That was probably why he generally discarded the weapon most of the time.

* * *

The Turtles made short work of the Rank warriors. With the seven of them working together, it had been easy.

"Piece of pie." Venus grinned. Leo didn't bother to correct her this time.

But their battle wasn't over. Now they faced their most threatening opponent, the one which the Turtles had never been able to bring down before.

The Dragon Lord was obviously furious at the defeat of his well-trained, yet often defeated soldiers. An evil snarl spread across his lips and his eyes began to glow red. Mike took a step back and began to visibly shake. Michaelangelo watched his counterpart, wondering why he was so stricken with fear.

Then he realized why when a flame of searing flames shot from the Dragon Lord's mouth. He was definitely not in a good mood.

The Turtles backed up to form a sort of huddle, all the while keeping their eyes on their dragon enemy and his annoying little sidekick, Wicke.

"Okay," Leo whispered. "This is going to be tricky."

"Tricky?" Raphael smirked. "Believe me, we've faced _far_ more dangerous villains than this! Baxter Stockman, The Shredder, Pimiko, Komodo, Romero, the Triceratons... this guy ain't shit!"

"Yeah, c'mon, Leo," Raphael's eyepatchless counterpart responded. "This guy ain't so tough. The only reason why we haven't defeated him yet is 'cause you wouldn't let us use our weapons on him."

Leo sighed. "Look, Raph, I just wanted us to learn how to fight as a full-fledged team. If we work together, if we get our minds on the same track, we can defeat anything. We're ninja; we use our bodies and minds. Weapons are meaningless without that."

Michaelangelo thought about that for a moment. Wasn't that what _their_ Leo had been trying to get them to understand for a long time? Suddenly, it all made sense. The Turtles were skilled, yes, and their weapons helped them defeat their enemies. But they had something much stronger than that. They were bonded, both mentally and emotionally, a tie which nothing but death itself could ever sever.

But ninjas... ninjas were assassins.

"Okay, now, I'll take the lead. Raph, you and, uh, Raphael can follow up and attack from the side. Now..." He stared at the two of them seriously. "This is going to take teamwork, so no bickering."

"Yeah, yeah..." Raphael mumbled. _Just like my Leonardo... always so damned bossy..._

"Michaelangelo?" Leo continued. "You can join Don, Mike, and Venus at the rear. Everyone understand their positions? Good." He drew his oddly-crafted two-in-one sword. "Now... attack!"

"It's Green Time!" they all shouted, and this time Michaelangelo and Raphael joined in, just for the heck of it.

Instantly, Leonardo rushed forward, throwing a forward kick into the Dragon Lord's stomach. The Dragon Lord didn't even so much as flinch. Leo staggered back a little and rose the sword.

"You've been lucky in the past, Dragon Lord, but this time, you're going down."

The Dragon Lord began to laugh. "I don't think so, my reptilian friend."

Michaelangelo noticed that his mouth hardly moved as he spoke. _How does he do that?_

Leo tried a punch this time, making contact with the Dragon's jaw. He wavered a little, but just barely, his eyes glowing red again.

"Leo! Duck!" Mike called from behind.

Leo dropped down just in time for the flames to miss his head. While the Dragon Lord was distracted with Leo, Raphael and Raph set themselves in motion. They had a plan—they would attack simultaneously, one from each side. He may be able to block one, but he certainly wouldn't be able to handle both at the same time.

They charged, weapons in hand, heading straight for their enemy's sides. Raphael was still amused at the crazy weapon Raph wielded. Whoever heard of a pair of sai connected at the handles before? But he reminded himself he needed to concentrate. There would be more time for questions later.

Michaelangelo couldn't help but wonder why they didn't attack simultaneously as a group, but Leo probably had his reasons. He always did. He glanced at Mike. "So... when did you decide to switch to tonfa?"

Mike shrugged. "Well, I did use to have 'chuks. Sometime after we went on a time-traveling trip to 1603 Feudal Japan, I guess I just got tired of the things. But now I'm starting to fall in love with them all over again."

Raph ran for the Dragon Lord and sent a kick into his side, where the armor didn't protect him fully. He winced in pain, his eyes glowing more brightly than before.

"Just for that, _you'll_ be the first _au d'erve."_

"I don't think so," the Turtle snarled.

Meanwhile, Raphael was stealthily sneaking up on his other side. Their plan was working perfectly. But just as he was about to drive the sai into the Dragon's side, the pesky Wicke spotted him.

"M-ma-majesty!" Wicke wailed. "Another Turtle... over here!"

"Shut up, you pesky 'lil short shit," Raphael snapped.

The Dragon Lord turned, fire burning in his eyes. Raphael matched the intense glare, and held it there, challenging him. The Dragon Lord's anger grew.

In a swift movement, the Dragon Lord pulled out a jagged sword, so quickly, so violently, that Wicke fell off his shoulder to the floor. "Now you die," he said calmly.

Raphael met the challenge.

As the two began to fight, Leo returned to the others. "If we're going to defeat him for good, we're going to have to work as a team. Just remember what Master Splinter taught us."

"Don't worry, Leo," Donatello nodded. "We know what to do."

Venus reached in a pouch at her waist and pulled out two round _kai mi_ balls. Mike grinned. He loved this part.

Raphael blocked the Dragon Lord's stab with his sai. This guy was good, but not good enough. With the Dragon's weapon caught, Raphael seized the opportunity and sent a kick into his chest. The Dragon Lord cried out in frustration. Still, Raphael was confused. He seemed to have a wall around him that was impossible to penetrate.

Silently, Venus snuck up behind the Dragon Lord and tossed one of the _kai mi._ The whole area where Raphael and he were fighting filled with smoke. "I am shinobi," she said proudly.

The others clutched their weapons and rushed into the smoke. Here was their chance to practice the art of blind fighting. Splinter had taught it to them well. With the Dragon Lord and Wicke seriously outnumbered, and unable to see or fight in the thick cloud of smoke, the Turtles had the advantage. Teaming up, Don cracked him in the side of the neck with his bo, one of the only places he wasn't protected by the heavy armor. The Dragon Lord was knocked off balance and clutched the sore spot on his neck. Michaelangelo seized the opportunity and began to swing the nunchuks, hitting him in every possible weak spot he could find. Leonardo used a sweep kick technique to knock him even further off balance, and eventually sent him to the floor. Mike joined his counterpart in attacking the Dragon Lord's weak spots until he was bruised and weary, then grabbed some rope from around an exhibit and tied the Dragon Lord up by his wrists and ankles. Raph was busy with Wicke, one hand around his neck, pinning him to the wall. The Dragon Lord now subdued, Raphael made his move.

"Raphael!" Leo shouted, seeing him move with the rage in his eye. "No!"

But it was too late. Raphael was on top of him, burying one sai through a fold in the Dragon's torso plate mail armor and the other straight into his gut. He thrust them in as far as he could, twisted them, held the Dragon's wavering gaze for a moment, then withdrew his weapons and stood away.

As the smoke cleared, the Turtles stood around. They'd done it. After all this time, they'd finally defeated their enemy, and it had been teamwork that had seen them through.

"This... isn't... over!" the Dragon Lord rasped.

"Majesty!" Wicke choked. "Help me!"

"Oh... shut up, you... blubbering idiot!" he snapped back, his voice choking on the blood caught in his throat.

"Good-bye, Dragon Lord," Venus said quietly. "I will now banish you once again to the Realm of Dreams where you belong, and avenge my master, Chung I."

"Nuh... no!" the Dragon Lord protested, pain in his voice. "N-no, you... _can't!"_

But Venus ignored him. Instead, she closed her eyes and began to concentrate, focusing all her power on the task at hand. Slowly, her hands began to light up, and a swirling force began to form around the Dragon Lord.

Raphael let Wicke go, tossing him into the void with his master. As the air swirled faster and faster around them, the Dragon Lord gave one last cry of defiance, and then they were gone.

Venus knelt down on one knee after it was over. "At last it is over," she sighed. "Shall we return now to our home in the toilet?"

"Sewer, Venus," Leo corrected for the umpteenth time. "Sewer."

* * *

"You have done well, my sons," Splinter said softly, sitting cross-legged in his subway car. He glanced at the two new-comers. "All of you."

"Thank you, Master Splinter," Michaelangelo said, and he and Raphael bowed. They wondered why this dimension's Splinter's right ear had been cut most of the way off and considered asking him about it.

"You two... I see your own Splinter has taught you well," Splinter spoke to the two Turtles. "Please give him my regards."

"We'll do that," Michaelangelo said. Since being returned to normal from the rabid bat-state he had been left in for those bleak months after being injected with Go-Komodo's synthetic mutagen, Splinter had been spending most of his time reclusively, meditating during most of it.

Their extra-dimensional romp had been fun while it lasted, but the two of them were ready to try and go home. Even though they were returning to the real world, this experience wasn't one they would soon forget.

Don came and stood in front of them. "Ready?"

"Ready as I'll ever be." Raphael grimaced.

Raph walked up to him, and shot him a cocky smile. "It's been real," he said.

"Yeah... you're all right." Raphael grinned.

"Hey, master, I think I want my 'chuks back." Mike grinned and glanced back at Michaelangelo. "So you say in your dimension you have a _girlfriend?"_

"Okay, let's get started." Donatello pressed a button on the computer. "Now I'm not sure if this is going to work, but it should. I simply reversed the gravitational pull from the first time hole." It had not been any picnic figuring it out, but Don had some time to study the physics of time travel since their experience in Feudal Japan with April's scepter a year ago. "In, uh, theory, that should send you back through the portal to your own time and dimension."

The computer began to hum, and Michaelangelo and Raphael took their places in the middle of the lair floor.

"Wait!" Venus called. "I want to go with you!"

"Huh?" Michaelangelo and Raphael glanced at each other in shock.

"I want to see your world. I want to experience it and learn from it. And perhaps I can be of assistance in the defeat of your enemy."

"Now wait just a minute..." Raph protested. "Venus, you don't know anything about this other world. Besides, you belong here with us."

"How do you know you can get back?" Leo added.

"Mei Pieh Chi must make her own decisions." Splinter stepped in. "She is her own person, just as all of you. She must choose her own path."

"Thank you, Master Splinter." She bowed, then turned to Michaelangelo and Raphael. "Do you have any objections?"

They looked at each other for a moment, sharing the same thought—What would Leo think?

Raphael grinned. "What the hell. Welcome aboard."

Venus took her place with the other two and bid her farewells as the world started to shift around her.

"Until we meet again." Leo bowed.

The three waved and faded into nothingness.

_Damn... I gotta get me a bike! _Raphael thought.


	4. Chapter 3 : Heroes in a Half Shell

**"Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles : Transcension"**

**Chapter Three  
H E R O E S  
in a  
H A L F  
S H E L L**

**Post-Apocalypse Earth (Dimension X); New York City, December 19TH, 1996 A.G.**

Under a mottled yellow sky, the cursed Earth stood still. In the blistering radioactive heat wave that had not relented a degree since the unofficial end of the Third Nuclear War just under a decade ago, a rumbling could be heard emanating from the underground caverns—caverns tunneled decades ago for the weak, now nearly extinct human race to take shelter from the endless fallout—beneath the black, blasted ruin that had once been called New York City.

In the hull of the newly restored steel, dome-shaped behemoth that prowled the caverns on huge, tank-like treads known only as the Technodrome, two figures rounded the corner on its Deck 7. An entire entourage of Rock Soldiers marched close behind, brandishing their plasma caster firearms with a few of the android Foot Soldiers pulling up the rear.

"I knew things would bounce back for us sooner or later, Saki," the talking pink brain spoke from within the stomach cavity of a burly, mannequin-like android body.

"Yes, Krang," the caped figure clad in bladed armor said, unenthused.

Krang cackled, his many jagged teeth gleaming in a twisted smile. "You and I have been through too much these past few months. Foiled by the Turtles again and again... our... troubles with one another... and then Dregg to top it off... and _Gargon..."_ Krang licked his lips and turned to his ever-faithful Rock Soldier military commander, General Traag. "Prepare my soldiers and make preparations for inter-dimensional transit. Earth will see why I am the most feared warlord in Dimension X."

General Traag tipped his helmeted head. "Yes, Lord Krang. Your will be done."

"And the Turtles, too," the Shredder seethed, "don't forget about the Turtles!"

Krang gave a sigh, shaking his membranous mass. "There you go again about the Turtles. I've told you time and time again... forget about the Turtles—we have bigger goals, Saki. Bigger goals!"

The Shredder grinned tightly under his mask. "Earth—my Earth—will be ours."

"No, Saki." Krang wouldn't give him even that small satisfaction. "Mine. But don't worry... our day has finally come. I don't intend to spend one more minute than necessary in this forsaken reality I was born in they call 'Dimension X.' The Technodrome, ours once more, finally is returning to Earth."

The Shredder sighed. Once, he had thought of nothing else but eventually usurping and overthrowing Krang, taking his place... somehow, over the years these thoughts had become ideas, and these ideas had become lost. Had he become subservient now; lost so much of who he used to be? "Yes, Krang."

"Only this time, Saki, my friend..." Krang cackled in trademark style, "I promise you, it will be _war."  
_

**

* * *

****Cartoon Earth (Dimension C); New York City, December 19TH, 1996 A.D.**

Painful imagery... faces and places seen through a haze ebbing from blackness to red to a twisted version of normal vision. But it couldn't be—it was not reality he was viewing. Some kind of dream, maybe a delirious episode of a sort...

Leonardo's eyes shot open. Jolting up and stumbling to his feet, he found himself faced with the horrible thing that had awakened him.

"No dream..." he muttered under his breath. "No episode..." He remembered the Shogun; being hit with some kind of energy pulse.

He remembered, but it made no difference. He had been transported to what looked like modern-day Central Park, New York City. Still, it was not his whereabouts that worried him at the moment, not the unexplained absence of his brothers and Renet... it was the six hundred foot dome noisily erupting from the earth, soil, debris, and pavement raining off its white plating and the eye that crowned the great monstrosity.

Leo gasped, backing away from the resulting tremors even as he got his footing.

"What the hell... is this?" he thought aloud.

He received no answer, only the droning of the domed, white superstructure's engines as its tower-sized treads rolled its mass over the lip of the crevice it had burrowed out of.

"Wha!" gasped Leonardo. A drill head nine meters in diameter poked out of the ground only a few feet from where he was standing. A whole cylinder-shaped structure revealed itself attached to the drill head.

"Some kind of... underground transport module?"

The craft broke free of the earth and slid aside. A door on its side hissed open and two burly figures stepped outside.

"Hey, Rocksteady—look!" the warthog-like one of the pair said. He pointed a chubby, pink finger at Leonardo. "A toitle!"

"Our lucky day, Bebop." The Rhinoceros-looking one grinned, then began advancing on Leonardo with his companion. "Just one of youse, huh? Oh well. Let's make toitle soup outta this guy!"

Slowly, menacingly, Leonardo drew a katana with his only hand, a second one telescoping out of the cap on the stump of his left hand. "I don't think so," he seethed.

Bebop stopped a moment, scratching his purple-mohawked scalp. "That's funny... I thought the one with da swords wore a blue bandanna..."

"Who cares? Jus' shaddup'n get'im!"

Leo took a fighting stance. "I will kill you," he warned.

_"Pshaw,"_ Rocksteady grunted. "Since when do youse guys kill?" He went for his gun, his arm dropping to his side. Leonardo saw it and lunged to one side, expertly bringing his katana at just the right point. He brought it down over the creature's wrist as he grabbed a hold of his pseudo alien-like firearm. Rocksteady's severed hand, gun clenched in it, fell to the ground, the stump at the creature's right wrist gushing arterial blood. "My... my _hand! G-yahhh!"_ Leo turned on his heels, throwing his weight around with hopefully enough time to deal with...

Too late.

"Lights out, toitle," Bebop spoke from behind the smoking barrel of his own firearm. Leo grasped at the painful scorch mark on the front of his shell. "Nobody hurts my pal Rocksteady and walks away."

Leonardo painfully stirred on the ground, only vaguely remembering falling on his shell.

"Except fer today, toitle. You gets to live to deliver a message to your brothers," Bebop spoke, his gun poised on Leo's head in case he tried anything. "Tell them we're waitin' for'em. Tell'em Shredder'n Krang's waitin'. C'mon, Rocksteady."

With that, the mutant warthog and maimed rhinoceros left Leo to regain his bearings, clomping off to return to their transport module.

Leonardo's next memories came in blurred snippets, remembered and reconciled only after he reached what his body had decided was destination. He remembered crawling along the ground above, searching, looking for something... an opening... a

"Sewer..."

Leonardo looked below him at the manhole he had managed to drag himself to, the cover of which pulled off. Painfully, Leo forced himself into the opening, letting himself drop.

Freefalling to the bottom, the darkness embraced him wholly in a muffled thump of a sound.

* * *

"He's got your bandanna on, Raph!"

"Like, wake up, dude!"

Leonardo awakened to find himself surrounded by...

"Guys?" Leonardo looked around at the four Turtles, blinking rapidly in disbelief. "But there are four of you... and..."

The lettered belts. The purple, blue, and orange bandannas. Another Leonardo (with both hands) was standing there. Don wasn't a cyborg. Raph had two good eyes.

Peering around, it was hard to describe... but his surroundings just seemed so... so _colorful._

It didn't take long for all the pieces to click into place. Leonardo remembered the enigmatic, yet somehow so familiar Shogun's final words. Had he been talking about opening the doors to alternate dimensions? He must have, for that was what Leonardo had to be in.

_Raph... Donny... Mike..._ he worried for his own brothers, wherever they might be. Probably in similar predicaments; hopefully together. More than likely, if Leo could just hang on, Renet would bail him out sooner or later.

That was, if she was in any condition to do so...

Soon the variably bandanna colored and letter belted Turtles took Leonardo to their own sewer lair, where they began comparing notes with him. It began first with introductory matters...

"Your hand..."

Leonardo gave the capped stump of his left hand a solemn glance, then looked to his counterpart. "You like swinging two swords, right? Well, lemme give you a little advice. If you ever run into a mutant monitor lizard named King Komodo... you stay the hell clear, okay?"

The other Leo shrugged. "Gotcha, but I can't say that we've run into him yet."

"If he even exists in this reality." Leonardo grunted. "But... you guys look younger than my brothers and I. What's the date now?"

"December 19th, 1996."

"'96? I'm six years into the future _and_ in an alternate dimension?"

"Unbelievable..." the purple-bandannaed Don of the dimension gasped in awe.

Next they spoke of the variances in their dimensions, most notably how in Leo's dimension, Splinter was Splinter, and in the Turtles' dimension, Splinter was Hamato Yoshi, the man Leo and his own brothers spent their lives being brought up to avenge.

"In my reality, you, Hamato Yoshi, are the master of my own sensei, Splinter," Leonardo said to Splinter, old, but still so much younger than his own master. "My sensei was, in fact, _your _pet rat that _you_ took from Japan."

The rat twisted a whisker between its fingers. "Interesting... when I lived in the sewers of this city as a man, the rats were my friends... it was from my contact with the rats and the mutagen that I am a mutant rat... I adopted the name Splinter to suit my new appearance." Splinter paused. "I never had any pets when I trained in Japan, however. You may call me Hamato Yoshi if it is less confusing for you."

"Thank you."

"Tell me, Leonardo of another dimension... am I alive in your reality?"

Leonardo wasn't sure if he'd tell him that, in his reality, a young and vengeful Oroku Saki had killed him and his wife in their apartment. "No," was all he decided to say.

"I see..." He stopped, concerned. "What of Oroku Saki, the Shredder? Did you and your own brothers manage to put his and Krang's menace down?"

"There is no 'Krang' in my reality, but we did put down Oroku Saki." Leo winced at the memories. "Our first encounter, I ran him through with both of my katanas and he blew himself up with a grenade on accident. The second time I cut off his head and burned his body over the harbor." _And then the business with his worms reforming as that monster... but no need to go into that,_ Leonardo thought to himself. It seemed they probably wouldn't know what he was talking about.

"I see."

"But I understand the Krang of this dimension is a continuing threat," Leonardo spoke. The gazes he met of the Turtles told him he was right. "His 'Technodrome' has just now arisen in the city."

"Many times we have fought him," the blue-bandannaed Leo said. "We've defeated him before, but—"

"But you did not kill him," Leonardo cut his counterpart off. "I suspected as much when I fought your 'Bebop' and 'Rocksteady.' You four do not kill."

"It is against the ninja code," Leo said defensively.

"Then the 'ninja code' of this dimension is a sham. The ninja of time's past were skilled assassins, rogues that were often frowned upon by the locals... to stay your hand again and again at an enemy the magnitude of which I suspect this Krang warlord is... it is ridiculous."

"It's ridiculous not to _murder?"_ Raph spat.

Leonardo walked up to the Turtle. He saw the same fire in his eyes that he did in his own brother, only different. "Raphael... in my reality, you'd be the first to defend the killing of our enemies. But murder it is not... in honorable combat, death is simply the end result."

"But you're killi—"

"Quiet, my sons," Splinter spoke. "The Leonardo from another dimension is right. You see, I have hidden from you the truth about the way of the ninja... the way of the warrior... _bushido..._ since I started training you."

"What?"

"It's okay," Leonardo spoke. "I can see why your sensei would do that. I come from a reality where you four were raised by your sensei to one day assassinate the Shredder, the murderer of..." He broke off, coming dangerously close to telling the Splinter/Hamato Yoshi of the dimension what he knew he shouldn't. "Essentially, we were raised to be killers. You four had no one to avenge... you were not raised differently in the art of ninjitsu, but you _were_ raised differently in the way of the ninja."

"Your words have the ring of truth to them, Leonardo," Splinter spoke, nodding in agreement.

"Before I came to this sewer, the creature called Bebop told me to give you a message: 'Krang and Shredder are waiting.'" Leonardo started pacing as he spoke. "I know not how I am here, but I will not stand idly by while your enemies destroy the city I lived in my whole life."

"You propose something...?" Splinter asked.

"I do." Leonardo stopped, then swept his gaze over all of the Turtles, settling it on Splinter. He held the old rat's gaze for several moments before speaking. "For once in your lives... take the battle _to_ your enemies. Take it to them... and _vanquish_ them." Leonardo paused, letting his words sink in. "I will lead you."

_

* * *

__"Apriiil!" _

Running as fast as she could down the hallway of the Channel Six News office with her colleague, Irma, April O'Neil made it to her employer's office. Nearly out of breath, she quickly started to scramble into the door before she realized Mr. Burne Thompson himself was standing right in the middle of the doorway. "April, just _what_ have you been doing, sleeping?"

April fidgeted, unsure what he was talking about. "Um, excuse me...?"

Vernon Fenwick appeared from behind the door, standing next to Burne then. "Oh dear, you didn't hear? Martial Law has been declared in the city, wouldn't you know."

April and Irma exchanged a worried glance.

_The guys..._

_

* * *

National Guard and U.S. Marines from the Light Drop Infantry freely marched forth with their M-14 Assault Rifles and rocket-propelled grenade launchers upon the streets of the Martial Law-declared New York City. While M-1 tanks rolled forth on their treads and wings of Air Force jet fighter-bombers streaked overhead, a certain van sped by at top speed._

_"Bombs away!"_ Don shouted over the Turtle Com.

As Leonardo watched from the passenger seat of the Turtle Van, four of the bombs beneath the Turtle Blimp's gondola over half a kilometer into the sky were released in quick succession above the Technodrome. The salvo impacted against the hulking structure hard, tearing through the uppermost regions of the white hull effectively, holes twenty feet in diameter left in its wake.

The Technodrome gave its response, the great eye that crowned it focusing on the Turtle Blimp above it. Three surface-to-air ImRec missiles were fired from its built-in launchers, quickly homing in on their airborne target.

"Don, Mike—punch out!" Leonardo shouted into the Communicator at the two Turtles manning the ungainly blimp. _"Punch out!"_

The missiles punched through the Turtle Blimp's mass only seconds later, the floating vessel deflating rapidly and thrown on an erratic descent course. Mike and Don released the gondola module from the blimp's underside, the sleek craft gliding through the air under the assistance of its twin turbines. Don seemed to be piloting it with evident skill.

_A blimp... a van... what else do these Turtles have?_ Leo wondered to himself. _A pizza thrower?_

The other Leo jabbed a finger at the Technodrome as they closed within three blocks of it. He pointed out, "It's going right into the heart of Manhattan..."

"Then that's where we fight it," he responded decisively. "We will strike hard and fade away... into the night."

As the Turtle Van came into range of the Technodrome, the twin railgun turret atop the van opened up on the dome's underside and treads. Raph manned the gunnery controls, gleefully continuing to pepper the structure's hull with automatic firepower. It didn't take long for the magnetically-guided flechettes to leave their mark...

"Don, _now!"_

Don and Mike's gondola swooped down from overhead, gliding forth on a crash course while the two Turtles aboard bailed. As Don and Mike tucked into their shells and somersaulted out their momentum on the sidewalk, the gondola struck the hull of the Technodrome head on.

After picking up the two Turtles, the other Leo put the pedal to the metal, the thick and unpleasant aroma of burning rubber filling Leonardo's nostrils as the Turtle Van sped towards the smoky point of the gondola's impact.

"Here we go... hang on!"

Riding up the ramp between the two treads meant for underground transport modules, the Turtle Van smashed inside. Leonardo, his counterpart, Raph. Mike, and Don were thrown about as the van skidded to a halt inside a metallic-walled docking bay.

The Turtles hopped out, drawing their weapons as a squad of purple and black clad Foot Soldiers swarmed in from the adjacent corridors and accessways.

One by one they fell, struck down almost as quickly as they were able to file into the chamber.

"These Foot... they are _robots!"_ Leonardo spoke, kicking the oil-laden, sparking body of a Foot Soldier he had cut down.

"Um... androids, yeah, pretty much," Don confirmed.

"Interesting..."

As they started walking, Mike asked, "When we find Krang and Shredder... you will kill them, won't you?"

Leonardo ignored the question. "Let's keep moving."

The image of the Shredder abruptly flickered onto a screen on the wall. The helmeted visage appearing on it rocked back and forth, laughing. "Fools... _freaks!_ The time of your doom is at last at hand! Tonight I dine on Turtle Soup!"

The blue-bandannaed Leo stepped forward. "I don't think so, Shred Head! This time we're gon—"

Leonardo put a hand on his counterpart's shoulder, then walked in front of him. "Look at you, Oroku Saki... an underling," Leonardo spoke, stepping up to the screen. "A whining, incompetent underling. The Shredder of my reality was many things I despised, but at least he was independent; at least he was a leader."

"I _am_ the leader! You say these things to... to... _taunt_ me!"

"Yes, Oroku Saki, do your whining. But when we meet face to face, you will find I have no patience for you or your master's games. You had better kill me, for I will kill you where you stand."

A series of conflicted emotions played out on the Shredder's face. Finally, the man spat "Bah!" and the screen shut off.

"Come on." Leonardo led the way into the adjacent corridor.

On their way they had to fight through odd one-wheeled robots with taser lines, mousers, more Foot Soldiers, and strange gun-toting Rock Soldiers that could only be rendered unconscious. The persistent enemies stalked them into the elevator platform they came upon, putting them on the defensive throughout their long ascent to the top deck.

There was something different about the way the other Turtles worked, Leonardo noticed as he watched them fight. A togetherness... a silent bond even stronger than the one he felt between he and his brothers.

Finally they reached the main chamber. The purple-caped Shredder, Krang, Bebop, Rocksteady, and a rock-comprised man even more burly than the Rock Soldiers the Turtles had run into on the way up. He stood in the center, an army-esque helmet on his rocky head, and holding a futuristic rifle militarily against his chest.

"There you are, my Turtle friends," the brain-like Krang cackled from within his android body. To Leonardo he looked not a whole lot unlike a TCRI Utrom inside one of their exoskeletons. "General Traag... you know what to do."

"Yessir." General Traag, the burly Rock Soldier, saluted Krang, then promptly charged the Turtles.

"You guys handle Bebop and Rocksteady... I've got the General," Leonardo instructed. He sheathed his katana for the moment, knowing from fighting the Rock Soldiers that it would do no good against Traag.

"You got it," the other Leo replied, drawing his own twin katana.

Leonardo began circling his opponent, sizing him up even as Traag did the same.

Traag winced as his plasma caster was smacked out of his grasp by a fierce roundhouse from Leonardo. "Eh?" Anger gleamed in his eye as he reached out to strangle Leonardo. "You're gonna pay fer that!"

Leonardo caught the airborne plasma caster. "Maybe in the next life, General."

The stock against his shoulder as he wrestled with the General, Leonardo jammed the barrel of the plasma caster under Traag's chin and pulled the trigger. Rock fragments and debris sprayed across the other side of the chamber as the disembodied corpse buckled over with a loud, reverberating noise.

Leonardo threw Traag's plasma caster aside, drew his katana again, and stood away. He found the other Turtles to be done with Bebop and Rocksteady.

"Blast it!" Krang shrieked, the thick arms of his android body flailing wildly. "Kill them, Saki! Saki, you fool, do _something!"_

"Yes, Kr—no..." Shredder rasped, wincing. He looked slowly to the five Turtles, then repeated himself more decisively to the talking brain, _"No."_

"What did you say, Saki?"

"I said _no." _He began walking toward his master, taking long, meaningful strides.

"I know we've had a... difficult past... haven't always seen eye-to-eye... this isn't about Lotus, is it? Nuh-no... okay... but..." Krang tried to back away, finding the wall. "S-Saki, whuh-what are doing...?"

"Something I should have done a long time ago." In one broad swipe of his arm across the midsection of his master's android body, Shredder cleaved the horrified Krang messily in half, blood and pink matter spattering across his steel mask and helmet.

His task done, the Shredder stepped back, surveying his gruesome handiwork. With a pause, he turned to the one-handed Leonardo. "I became my own Master the day I betrayed your Hamato Yoshi and took over the Foot Clan. Ever since New York and Krang... I couldn't say that anymore. For the first time in much of my life... I am my own master again..."

Bebop and Rocksteady crawled to the Shredder, their firearms trained on the Turtles.

"Masta Shredda... you okay?" Rocksteady asked.

"I am fine, Rocksteady," Shredder answered. His voice was even, something of a serenity to it.

"Are you still our enemy, Oroku Saki?" the other Leo inquired. The other Turtles seemed to be wondering the same thing.

Shredder thought about that for a moment, not making a sound before returning with, "After everything we have been through I... I should think so, but today I think not. Years ago I betrayed your sensei in Japan... I will make my amends now. The Foot Clan here will die with me, I will see to it." He turned away from the corpse of Krang, just having made his first independent decision since before he could remember. Blood and pink matter still dripped from his gleaming blades. "Krang had a failsafe hardwired into the Technodrome. When his life signs cease, a self-destruct mechanism initiates. You Turtles have five minutes to get out of here."

Leonardo furrowed his brow in concern. "What about you?"

Shredder smiled beneath his mask. "Don't worry about me. Leonardo... wherever you came from, I thank you. You opened my eyes... and set me free."

"Shouldn't weese get outta here, boss?" Bebop asked.

He looked to his two henchmen. "Bebop... Rocksteady... my loyal servants to the end. I release you both from my service."

"Aren't you comin' too, boss?" Rocksteady asked.

Shredder turned away from them. "You two had better get moving—you Turtles, too."

Leonardo held the Shredder's gaze for a long moment, tipped his head, then led the Turtles back the way they came, Bebop and Rocksteady going another way.

* * *

Speeding away from the Technodrome in the now-battered Turtle Van, the Turtles made their escape with only seconds to spare.

Behind them, the Technodrome went up in a chain reaction of white hot exploding gases and liquid hydrogen, the family of conduits and pipelines running throughout its superstructure consigning the entire mobile dome to an explosive release not unlike a small-yield tactical nuclear detonation. The van shook after the initial thunderclap, shuddering as the blast wave passed over them. Debris and shrapnel drummed against the van's rear and across its roof, some of it punching holes in its sides.

Three blocks away, they were safe. And victorious.

"Your methods, Leonardo... I don't agree with them, but... but you're a good leader." The other Leo looked away from his driving for a moment, extending a hand.

Leonardo clasped it and shook. "And you are, too, I'm sure. This dimension is a little bit wily... wacky, even. That you and your own brothers have managed to endure everything your enemies have thrown at you and still endure thus far only speaks highly of your ability to lead your brothers out of danger."

"Thank you."

"Krang, Traag... Shredder... they're all dead," Don rasped. "Dead with that Technodrome. Since Dregg's gone, it's like our whole rogues gallery has been cleaned out..."

"There's more to life than just fighting our enemies, Donatello," Leonardo spoke. "But in my reality... enemies new and old had a funny way of finding us whether we liked it or not."

"Well, that looks like a cowabunga-acious wrap, bros," Mike chimed. "Turtle power?"

The four Turtles aside from Leonardo brought a hand together. "Turtle power!"

Leonardo shook his head, repressing a small, wry grin.


	5. Chapter 4 : Darkness Weaves

**"Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles : Transcension"**

**Chapter Four  
D A R K NE S S  
W E A V E S**

**Archie Earth (Dimension D); Jerusalem, October 18TH, 1993 A.D.**

Donatello's mind had gone nearly blank from the shock of the abrupt temporal distortion that had enveloped him and his brothers.

"Where did that freak send us, guys? Uh, guys?" Shaking the uneasiness out of his head, Don quickly performed a long-range remote scan with his cybernetic left eye. Via his built-in GPS, with enough time he reckoned he could hone in on and locate his brothers and, for the moment, he could at least figure out where he was.

_This… this is Jerusalem,_ he thought to himself as he walked through an empty street corner. _But why on earth would he send me here?_

Cluttered debris and busted up chunks of bricks were strewn about all over the place. Whatever party had gone on there he figured he was showing up a little bit late for. "What the bloody hell happened here!"

Before he could even fathom the reasoning behind it there was a semi-distant loud explosion sounding much like a "car bomb." Don took off running towards the ensuing chaos... when he caught sight of what appeared to be a giant green and purple monster in the sky.

"**Hear me**, children of many faiths!" a thunderous voice droned. "Hear the words of the **Animus!** Hear the words that herald your final days!"

"Final days? Crap, this must be that Shogun guy's doing," Don figured as he readied and morphed his cybernetic arm into an automatic, slug-throwing arm cannon as the beast continued his rant,

"The moment prophesized by the **Dead Sea Cult** in the holy days of old is at hand. THE WAR OF THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT AND DARKNESS SHALL NOW BEGIN! The **end of time is here!**"

"All right, that's just about enough out of you, you goddamned freak! Get ready to meet your friggin' maker!" Donatello shouted as he attempted to blast the monster in the face, only to be quickly subdued and thrown into the crowd of civilians, all Middle Eastern—assumedly many Israeli—who did a good job of holding him down tight. The blank look in their eyes indicated that the Animus creature had somehow hypnotized them. "Oh great, I'm being overtaken by a bunch of zombies!" He knew they were innocents—he dared not risk killing them in an attempt to break free.

"**Long** have I waited for this moment," the foul creature continued. "**Long** have I waited from the **dark**, watched as man killed man in the name of **religion**, in the name of **love and light**, for the sake of **GODS** and **PROPHETS** long since vanished from this realm.

"For **two thousand years**, this madness has continued, spreading forth like the shadows that joined together to form the night… **Tonight it ends!** Tonight I have come to quicken the pace of your destruction, to set **all** of you against one another… **to end it once and for all**… for if **light** cannot join with **light**, then only **darkness** shall prevail.

"My darkness. **ME**. My children of darkness, my **Hashasheem**, have called me forth… **AND NONE SHALL STAND IN OUR WAY!**"

Don just about had all he could take. Innocents or not, he knew what had to be done. Before he could even make such a bold move though, a blue-skinned female-looking creature came flying through the sky. "I, creature of darkness, shall stand in your way! **I, Golani**, defender of the state of Israel, protector of this most **promised land!**" she stated as she brought forth a burst of energy from her hands.

"Eh?" the creature drew back a bit. "What is this; a creature that dares wield its power against **me**; against the **Animus**? No matter, my growing **army of darkness** shall deal with you!"

Donatello, though getting used to expecting the unexpected at this point, was at a loss for words at the next sight he saw, that of two more strange creatures.

"Al' Falqa shall smite her from the heavens..." a large, white-feathered falcon with wings and human appendages boomed.

"... And Katmandu shall give her the gift of everlasting darkness!" came the voice of a humanoid tiger with four arms.

"_We hear, and obey, O Animus!_"

Wasting no time, Al' Falqua slammed himself into Golani. Likewise, Katmandu did his best to claw into her with all his might and brute animal strength.

Not far from the ruckus, a purple-bandannaed Donatello awoke after being briefly knocked unconscious. "Oooh, my head; that explosion. Hey, what do you think you're doing?" before he could react, a cloaked marketplace worker punched this Don in the jaw just as he got up and thrust the man aside. "I really wish you dudes would five it a _rest!"_ He rejoined his brothers from this dimension, Leonardo and Raphael, along with Raph's fox-like girlfriend Ninjara.

"Hey, who's the babe?" Raph asked as they witnessed what had become of Golani.

"**C'mon**, we gotta **save her!**" Leonardo shouted as they sprang into action.

"By the Gods!" Ninjara shrieked at the sight of the monster as she and Don subdued Al' Falqua.

"No, there are **no Gods** here! There is only **me, the Animus!**"

At that same moment, Leo and Raph leaped onto Katmandu, releasing his hold on Golani.

"Thank you," she spoke. With that, she flew gracefully back into the air. "**ANIMUS! I'm coming for you!**"

"I think not, and neither do my children. **TAKE HER!**" he commanded the Hashasheem to hold her down.

"**BEAST!"**

April and her young assistant Oyuki stood in a nearby alleyway, Oyuki standing poised with her video camera. Since April had lost her job in New York she had become a freelance reporter, and Oyuki had been more or less her assistant since they'd met in Japan.

"This... this is a pretty heavy scene, boss," Oyuki spoke, more than a little nervous. "Like, maybe we oughta come back later, ya know?"

April shared her sentiment. "I know, Oyuki. I'm scared, too. Let's just get the monster on video and then we'll get outta here. I'll shine the spotlight on him while you get the footage." Carefully but hastily, she prepared the spotlight. "Ready? On my word... _now!"_

The Animus recoiled. "**EH?** Light? **THE ACCURSED LIGHT!"**

"Light?" Goloni thought aloud. All of a sudden it seemed so clear. "Of course! April, the light! Keep shining the light!"

"What?" April asked. "Who are you? How did you know my name!"

"It worked! He's vanishing!" Golani spoke. The Animus was nearly gone.

"For now, yes. But I'll be back… tonight!"

"Leo, what's going on?" April asked her friend.

Leonardo shook his head. "I dunno, but it seems to be over now."

"Hey, where're Master Splinter and Mike?" Ninjara asked.

"We are here, my sons," the wizened rat spoke as he aided his orange masked pupil. "Michaelangelo… has been blinded in the explosion that happened earlier."

"What!" Raph screamed as he drew out his sais. "Those _bastards! _Those limey _bastards!"_

"It will do us no good now, Raphael. We must remain calm. Help me with your brother."

"M-Master? Is that you? Everything's so dark," the orange-clad Turtle spoke weakly.

Meanwhile, purple-bandannaed Donatello had wandered over to the spot where the Goloni had been standing as she helped up the cybernetic being she had seen trying to intervene just before they managed to step in and dispense with Animus. "Is that… guy okay?" He harrumphed, watching the half-robotic figure with due caution. "Dude looks like Vid Vicious... what gives?"

"I believe he is all right... he was merely frazzled in the skirmish." Goloni bent down to offer a helping hand. "Here, my metallic friend. Let me help you take that armor off."

The visitor Donatello gave a smile. "I'm afraid you can't. This um, isn't armor. I'm what you might call a cyborg," he tried to explain. "It's a long story, but suffice it to say I was once an ordinary mutant Turtle much like these other guys."

"Oh. I'm, uh, very sorry to hear that," the native Donatello with the purple bandanna replied. "Listen, it's probably wise that you come with us. It isn't safe out here with all these people roaming about."

On the way back to the hotel where April had booked herself and Oyuki (as well as stashing Splinter, Ninjara and the Turtles), the cyborg Donatello explained how, after asking the year and date, he came from an alternate dimension in the past where he and his brothers of his world were sent by their friend Renet to battle the Shogun who was apparently bent on tampering with time and reality, and how in the skirmish he and his brothers were separated and sent to—apparently—various other dimensions. He still held the hope that at least one of his brothers was in the same dimension as he.

"I'm certain you will find your brothers again soon, Don," his purple-clad counterpart spoke. "But for now, perhaps it would be wise if you allowed yourself to recharge your power cells. You... do need to recharge, right?"

"Nah, my components are living metal. I'm like the Energizer Bunny," he laughed. He morphed his arm cannon back into a normal arm, extended his hand, and opened and closed a silver fist. "I do think I could do with a bit of down time, though... usually that seems to keep everything running okay after times when I see a lot of activity."

"I'm very sorry about what happened to your friend," Goloni spoke as she returned to her human form—Private Ariella Yahuda. "Molotov cocktails can be as deadly as they are crude."

"He's my _brother,_ and he's gonna be _fine._ No explosion's gonna keep Mikey down for very long!" Raphael replied as he put his arm around Michaelangelo. April also sat behind the now blind Turtle, holding his hand. The cyborg Donatello couldn't help but smirk at the irony of the situation. In his world, Mikey was now the only member of his kin who had not been drastically mutilated or transformed into a bat.

Leonardo decided to break the silence and ask Ariella exactly what was on everyone else's mind. "Now how about telling us what in the _world_ is going on around here? We thought this Interfaith Conference was gonna be a _peaceful_ affair!"

Ariella paused, took a deep breath, and began. "It _was_ a peaceful affair, that is before the Animus showed up, took over peoples' minds, making them fight among one another. Honestly, I only know about as much as _you_ do: The Animus is evil! It thrives in darkness. and seems powerless in the light. It is trying to bring about the end of time by igniting some sort of religious war... a war prophesied in one of the Dead Sea Scrolls. The Animus mentioned the Hashahasheem, who called it his children of darkness. They are the ones responsible for having summoned the Animus from whatever dark realm it once inhabited. They Hashasheem is an obscure sect of religious assassins that supposedly died out several centuries ago. Obviously they haven't."

The cyborg Donatello scratched at his domed head. Was it only coincidence? "Say, so this Animus... he doesn't have a boss, does he... a guy about yay high with a penchant for _noh_ masks, horns, and heavy cloaks?"

"Forgive me, what was that?" Ariella asked.

Donatello shook his head. "Nah, probably nothing. Go on."

Ariella shrugged. "Very well. The Hashasheem's stronghold from long ago was Nimrod's Fortress. It lies half in ruins in the northern part of the country. I suggest we all go there in search for clues... before nightfall when the Animus will be at its full strength!"

"Then what're we waiting around here for?" Leo responded, drawing out his katana. "Let's take the dude down before it's too late!"

"Kick some shell out there, dudes!" Mike said, his voice melancholy at this point. "Give him one for me!"

"Whatever are you saying, Mikey? We're not gonna leave you all by yourself," April assured him with a pat on the back.

"Actually, we have to leave him here," Don replied. "But not alone, of course! Oyuki can stay with Mike until we get back."

"But we can't have a fight without Mikey!" Raph complained as he pounded the wall. "Damn it, this totally sucks! When I get my hands on that Animus, I'm gonna _throttle the shi—"_

"Raphael, enough! Donatello is right. A battlefield is no place for one in Michaelangelo's condition."

"It's all right, Sensei. I understand," Mike said, sounding slightly more at ease as his friend held him in her arms. "Oyuki and I can just hang out here… in the dark."

"What about the um, robot Turtle?" Ninjara asked. By her expression, she seemed worried if calling him such would be taken as an offense.

"I'm a cyborg, and as much as I'd like to join you... it's probably for the best that I stay out of your personal affairs. I wouldn't want to jeopardize changing the course of your timeline, to say nothing of your dimension, anymore than it already has. Temporal paradoxes, time and anti-time anomalies, extra-dimensional coalescence..." Donatello paused to give an almost comical _whooo_ sound, "there's really only theory as to what could happen, but who is to say, really?"

The native Donatello nodded to his cyborg likeness. They spoke the same lingo, apparently. "Word, Brother."

The cyborg Don gave a shrug. "I figure I'll just stick around here with Oyuki and Mike until I'm rested up if it's all right with you guys."

"It was very fascinating to meet you, Donatello of another dimension," Splinter spoke as he bowed. "May I wish you safe journey back to your respective world."

"Thank you, sensei of this dimension. Good luck on your fight with the Animus."

"And hey..." His purple-bandannaed counterpart then stepped forward, offering a hand to Don. "Good luck finding your brothers, Donatello."

The two Donatellos shook hands. "Thank you."

With that, April, Ariella, Leonardo, Raphael, Ninjara, Splinter, and the native Donatello left the room and headed to defeat and vanquish Animus.

"Hey, Don, did you say you're from the past...?" Oyuki asked.

"Yeah, two years and... ten months to be exact. But keep in mind that I'm also from another dimension... one where things are very different from here. For one thing, April was never a television reporter and I don't believe we've even met you so you might not even exist."

Oyuki bit her lip, then gave a short laugh. "Wow, I guess that _does_ make things awfully different!"

"Well, that and then there's our old attire. Before I became, shall we say... cybernetic, my brothers and I always wore red masks and blank belt buckles, not different-colored masks with our initials on the buckles. Plus our arm and kneepads were brown, so they wouldn't even match our bandanas if we were to wear the multi-colored these guys have on."

"You seem to be describing what my bros and I in this world used to wear back when we were, um, Pre-School Mutant Ninja Turtles," Mike spoke. "That was a _really_ long time ago! I don't think our personalities and voices were fully developed yet so we all had squeaky-type voices which made it tough for Master Splinter to tell us apart."

"I guess my Master Splinter had a better sixth sense," the cyborg Turtle mentioned.

"Well, hey they're only human. I mean, your Splinter was a human named Hamato Yoshi before the mutation, too, right?"

Donatello shook his head. "No, actually he was the pet rat of a man named Hamato Yoshi... who was murdered by the Shredder."

"Holy spit! Now that really changed things!" Mike remarked, half-amazed to hear such a thing.

"I'm certain there's a lot we could tell each other about our different worlds had we met under different circumstances," Don spoke as he nodded. "But now listen, I really should be going... what's happening to my dimension, I got the strong impression time is pretty critical. I'll need to find my brothers." He gave a heavy sigh. "You guys just take it easy, okay?"

"We will, Don. Thanks for the well wishes!" Oyuki said as she and Mike shook hands with him.

Donatello snuck through the back hallways of the building and headed towards the fire escape he and the Turtles used earlier to get in. Once he was outside, he found his way to the rooftops downtown. He popped open a makeshift propulsion device on his back, equipped with a giant propeller, and proceeded to take off and head out over the ocean.

Utilizing his mechanical arm's built-in subroutines, Don continued the long-range search for his brothers. With some work, he managed to isolate and narrow the band down to just particles of the Utrom mutagen, using the mutagen in his own bloodstream as a reference.

"Hmmm... hey, I seem to be getting a fix on a location... yes, in South America!" he said as he changed course to the direction the beacon honed in on. "With any luck, maybe I'll find my brothers there!"

_Or at least a tan,_ he mused.

**_"Awesome place, Jerusalem. You can almost breathe the history...  
like it's in the air itself. The air of ages!"  
_**— Donatello  
(TMNT Adventures #53 - "The Animus Wars," Part 1 of 2)


	6. Chapter 5 : The Last Day on Earth

"**Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles : Transcension"**

**Chapter Five  
T H E  
Last Day On  
E A R T H**

**_"Farewell! if ever fondest prayer  
For other's weal availed on high,  
Mine will not all be lost in air  
But waft thy name beyond the sky."  
_**— Byron

**_"I know it's the last day on Earth  
We'll be together when the planet dies  
I know it's the last day on Earth  
We'll never say goodbye."  
_**— B. Warner

**Archie Earth (Dimension D); Mutanisle, October 20TH, 1993 A.D.**

Tiring after his two day off-and-on flight, Donatello finally piloted the makeshift helicopter his cyborg body had produced to just over the coast of the island he had spotted from afar. He spotted a campfire, a blond-haired woman, and three other figures off the shore.

"Donatello!" the woman shouted as she saw him descending on the beach. "What are you doing here? And... oh god, what _happened_ to you?"

Donatello maneuvered his way beside her, immediately retracting his helicopter blades and motor back into his living metal exoskeleton. "Well, couldn't help but notice that big meteor crash around here... I followed it to this island after picking up some mutant readings similar to my own. As for what happened to me..." He didn't particularly feel like regaling the strangers with his story of being shot up a year ago by Warlord Go-Komodo's hired cyborg thugs, then dropped out of a helicopter to merge with the symbiote of one of the cyborgs while he lay dying. For one thing it wasn't a memory he was too fond of and for another it was really none of their business. "I'm going to have to apologize in advance because this is going to sound strange... I'm not the same Donatello you know."

"Hey, that makes two of us." Another Donatello stepped forward, this one garbed differently. A certain air of age was about him. Same with the Raphael that stood next to him. "Where are you from?"

"Well... it's a long story, but I guess to you and the Turtles I just met—in Jerusalem of all places—I'm from another dimension what would be almost three years in the past to you. You guys...?"

The Don and Raph looked at each other. "We're from decades into, ah, this dimension's future. We came here..." The future Don pointed at the seven mounds of sand on the beach, "... to stop this."

"Man Ray... Jagwar... Dreadmon... Wingnut... Screwloose... Leatherhead... m-my Mondo..." the distraught woman broke off, tears filling her eyes. "The Mighty Mutanimals, they were called... they were all gunned down... it was a massacre. I-I... I can't believe they're all dead..."

Donatello nodded his head in solace. He was standing next to a veritable cemetery. "I'm sorry, ma'am."

"I-it's not your fault..." She sniffled. "The name's Candy Fine, by the way."

"Nice to meet you, Candy," Donatello spoke, bowing his head respectfully.

"That's Slash..." She indicated the burly Turtle sitting quietly by the campfire. He had darker skin than any of the Turtles, a black bandanna, twin wrist blades on each hand, and bore a crooked sai that hung from his belt.

"The vultures named me Slash," the black-bandannaed one spoke.

"Uh-huh. Hello, Slash," Donatello greeted the strange Turtle. He got no response.

"He came from Dimension X... the toxic dump world Morbus," Candy explained. "He used to work for Krang, but he's long since reformed."

"Four cyborgs did this..." the future Don spoke moments later, breaking the silence. His gaze was still fixed on the final resting place of the Mighty Mutanimals. "Deadeye, Waster, Lynch, and Fist..." For a moment he eyed Donatello suspiciously, particularly his cyborg components, but then seemed to relent, shaking off the notion. "Though I should suspect Null was behind it."

"It wasn't supposed to happen like this," the future Raph of the dimension sighed. The guy had an eyepatch, just like Donatello's own rebellious brother. Was it Raphael's destiny to lose his eye in every reality? "But for some reason... it _did."_

"We suspected someone was messing with the timeline," the future Don of the dimension added.

Donatello crossed his arms over his metallic chest. "Perhaps it was. The guy that threw my brothers and I to different dimensions said something about messing with time... tinkering with realities and dimensions sounded like his department, whoever he really is. Called himself 'The Shogun.'"

"Perhaps you should consult Cherubae. She has knowl—"

A burst of pseudo light stopped the future Don in mid-sentence.

Supreme Timestress Renet Tilley appeared from its point of origin, hopping out and floating to the sandy ground with strands of her soft blond hair flowing behind her. The afterimage of a time hole was left in the robed young woman's wake, remaining open as she rushed to Donatello. Desperation was in her eyes.

"Renet!" Donatello shouted upon recognizing her. Hope for returning home and becoming reunited with his brothers burned brightly in his heart once again. "You're alive! Do you know if my br—"

"Thank God I found you, Donny!" As Renet stopped at Donatello's side, the others only stared in bewilderment. "You've got to come with me right now—we have no time!"

"But—"

"Look, I'm not lying here. There really _is_ no time!"

"Eh?"

Renet took a deep breath, then tried to explain, "The Shogun is doing something from The End of Time... I'm not sure what, but he's cleaning the slate... he's erasing every dimension in existence one after the other from end to beginning to create something new." Renet's gaze swept over Donatello, the future Don and Raph, Candy, and lastly Slash. "I'm afraid this dimension is going to be first..."

"Can't we take them with us, Renet?"

Renet frowned, sighing. "Where we're going, Donny, they don't belong... and this dimension is ending."

"Damn it, Renet!" Donatello protested, waving an arm at the seven mounds of sand on the beach. "They just watched their friends and loved ones die right here—if we can save these people then, damn it, that's what we're going to do!"

"Maybe... perhaps I—"

"I'm not going," Candy said, her voice resolute.

Donatello gave her a look. "C'mon, lady—you're going to _die_ here!"

"Then... then..." Her brow furrowed as she wiped away more tears with one arm of her coat, "... then I want to die beside my Mondo..."

For a long moment all standing on the beach gave Candy Fine a long look. It was plain to see for all gathered there that there would be no changing this woman's mind.

Renet turned to the future Don and Raph of the dimension. "What about you two? Are you coming?"

"You said it right yourself. Where you're going... we don't belong. If this dimension is going to die, then we're going with it."

"Come on, Donatello," Renet said. She nodded back toward the gleaming time hole. "Let's get out of here."

"But..." Donatello looked back to Slash. "You didn't ask him..."

"You want to know why?" Renet took Donatello aside. "In the future of this dimension he's got to sacrifice himself to save the Turtles of this dimension and send the hive world of a warlord named Maligna into the sun. In short, he's gotta save the world. If he goes with us and gets killed, the Earth of this dimension... gets..." Renet stopped herself.

"Gets destroyed? You're forgetting, Renet... this dimension—with everything and everyone in it—is about to be _erased._ Won't be much left for him to save now, will there?"

The simple logic—and otherwise truth—to Donatello's words was irrefutable. "Very well, then." Renet turned to the Turtle sitting by the fire. "Slash... will you accompany us?"

All eyes fell to rest on the strange, burly Turtle.

"Will there be palm trees?" Slash finally inquired, his heavy features lighting up hopefully.

"Unlikely."

"Only kidding..." The light in his face dimmed. He was clearly in a time of mourning himself, though he tried to play it off. "You say the one responsible for this... this 'Shogun'... we go to fight him?"

Renet nodded. "We have no choice, not if any dimensions at all are to be preserved."

"Then I will accompany you."

Renet clapped her hands. "Then it's settled! C'mon, you two!"

Candy stood still while Donatello and Slash made their way to the time hole behind Renet. As they stopped before it, she raised her hand in a wave. "Good luck, guys," she called, weakly. Donatello nodded back, and an instant later Slash, Renet, and himself were gone.

Moments later the time hole swirled closed behind Donatello, Renet, and Slash. The future Don and Raph native to this dimension, alone with Candy now, exchanged a glance.

"It's been fun, Brother," Raph said, his face twisting in a grim smile. "Sorry I was always such an asshole."

"Don't worry about it, Raph." Don managed a smile, too, if a forced one. "Don't worry about it."

Seconds later, a cascading wave of pure anti-matter swept across Mutanisle and the rest of the planet with the gale-like force of a Coriolis storm, enveloping and consigning it all to thoughtless nothingness in the blink of an eye.

For the billions of lives on the Earth of Dimension D, their end was quick and painless.

* * *

**Cartoon Earth (Dimension C); New York City, December 20TH, 1995 A.D.**

"You say you drink _beer_ in your dimension?"

"Something wrong with that?"

The afternoon following their mission aboard the Technodrome, the four Turtles and Leonardo sat in front of the TV—this dimension's April O'Neil, oddly a reporter, and a perky woman with glasses named "Irma" on the Five O'Clock News—in a celebration the Turtles of the dimension often had in their sewer lair on a daily basis. There was cause for celebration this time, and the Turtles knew it.

_"Pizza time, dudes!"_ Mike shouted, frisbeeing a slice of pineapple-laden Hawaiian Delight at Leonardo.

"Thank you." Leonardo's left arm flashed out on reflex, the wakizashi-length blade within the cap on his stump shooting out to impale it through the center. He took a bite right away, only realizing how hungry he was until now.

"I never thought it'd ever happen," Leonardo's counterpart admitted. "Shredder, Krang, the Foot Clan... all of them defeated once and for all. Though we will never kill as you do, you have taught us a great deal. We owe it all to you, ah... Leonardo."

Leonardo nodded in acknowledgement, wiping his mouth with a forearm. "I did what I had to. Besides, I neve—"

"Leo!" shouted a distorted feminine voice. It sounded distant, yet coming from somewhere in the room. _"Leo,_ are you there?" The voice was closer; not as distorted this time. A sudden burst of spiraling colors framed in front of him what could only be the outline of a time hole. A young woman stepped out, hovering forth trailing wisps of ethereal energies and her flowing white gown.

"Whoa, who's the _babe?"_ Mike burst.

_"Renet!"_ Leonardo blinked, shooting to his feet as he disbelievingly recognized the young woman. "Renet... my god, can that be _you?"_

"Look—no time, Leo!" Renet shouted. "Come on, we've gotta go!"

"But—"

"The Shogun's erasing every dimension in existence one after the other to create something new from the End of Time," she explained hurriedly. "I've already gotten your brothers, along with two others from Dimension D and B... but..."

Leonardo's eyes narrowed to slits. "The Shogun... it's Savanti Romero. It _has_ to be." He'd always noticed something so familiar about the Shogun, something he couldn't place. He'd made the connection to Romero on their brief encounter in the 79TH Level of Null-Time in 137 B.C. Rome but he still wasn't sure it clicked. Still, he couldn't figure out, who else _could_ it be?

"Please, Leo..." Renet's gaze avoided the four Turtles of the dimension. "This dimension is next..."

Leonardo read the meaning behind her words. As the earth itself beneath his feet began to shake, he knew she was telling the truth. "Can they come along?"

"If... they wish," was Renet's hesitant reply. "I suspect they don't."

Leonardo shook his head. "What are you talking about? Of course they will." He turned to his counterpart. "You and your brothers will come, won't you? Damn sure of it, we can use the help—we're gonna be going up against a villain that could very well make your Krang and Shredder look like bank robbers."

The dimension's Leo stepped in front of his brothers. "This battle... it is yours, Leonardo," he spoke. "If our fate is to die with our reality, then that's our fate. Our paths part here—you have your dimension and we have ours."

Leonardo winced at his counterpart. What were they thinking? "But you'll die." The other Leo's solemn gaze didn't falter a centimeter, the decision remaining. The same stubbornness he had within himself was present in his counterpart—there was nothing to be gained by arguing the point, and he spoke for his three brothers.

"Just kick some shell out there for us, dude," Mike offered, forcing a grin. "Turtle Power."

"My brothers and I... we'll do everything we can to stop what is happening. We'll tr—"

"I know, my friend," the other Leo cut him off, nodding his head. "I know."

Leonardo turned, feeling Renet's hand on his shoulder. "We have to go, Leo," she reminded him softly.

"She's right, you know," Leo's counterpart spoke again, more than a hint of bitterness to his solemn voice. He extended a hand. "Goodbye, my friend."

Leonardo took it and once again held his gaze. "You're a good leader, my friend. Remember what I told you."

"Your brothers look up to you—don't you ever forget that."

The present dimension's version of Splinter appeared from his sleeping den. "Good luck, Leonardo," the old rat sighed. "All of our hopes rest with you, my son. Give the Splinter of your dimension my regards."

"I will."

Giving one last glance over his shoulder, Leonardo stepped into the time hole with Renet. It sealed a split second behind the two.

"So this is it," Raph spoke angrily through gritted teeth. Both fists clenched, he looked to his brothers. "This is how it ends for us."

"Our story may end here, my sons," Splinter said, ever the voice of reason and moderation, "but honorable lives you have lived. You don't know how proud you have made me all these years."

"Master Splinter..."

"I love you, my sons."

With that, the shaking the stoic-posed Turtles felt grew in intensity until entire crevices began ripping themselves open around them. The four brothers cried out for each other in the ensuing moments as they became separated, Mike soon hanging helplessly over the edge of one of the crevices he'd slipped into.

"Mikey—_no!"_ As Raph dove to help his brother the ceiling caved in, an array of pipes crashing down on his shell and skull.

Their suffering wouldn't last long. In the blink of an eye, the wave of nothingness reached them, consuming their sewer lair, their city, and their entire world. The unthinking, unfeeling anti-matter energies at the wave's wake broke down everything and everyone in its path to their component atoms and molecules before vaporizing even them.

**

* * *

****Live-Action Earth (Dimension B); New York City, December 20TH, 1997 A.D.**

It had been a day since Venus DeMilo had been sent along with the Michaelangelo and eyepatched Raphael from another dimension on her way after the Dragon Lord and his Rank had been at last struck down with their help. Things had been calm for the now-four-again Ninja Turtles, a rare thing indeed.

"I dunno, guys... I just really miss Venus," Leonardo spoke. "You think she's all right?"

Michaelangelo read the concern on his face, put his motorized skateboard down, and took a seat by his brother. He smirked, giving Leo a friendly jab to the side. "'Ol Mei Pieh Chi... you really had the hots for her, didn't you?"

"I-I don't t—"

"C'mon, admit it," Mike prodded. "I've seen you get that dreamy look in your eye when you look at her sometimes."

"No..." Leo said decidedly, shaking his head in earnest, "nothing like that. I guess I never really thought about it much until now, but she was a sister to me, just as she was to all of you, even if all five of us are unrelated by blood." He looked down. "But..."

"But you knew," came a new voice. Donatello sauntered in with an unusually mellow Raphael, taking a seat on the stool nearest the sliding door of the subway train's car. "Didn't you?"

Leo nodded understandingly, looking up and staring distractedly off. "She represented... something we never expected. Hope. A possibility for the continuation of our kind..." His head slumped on his shoulders and he gave a deep sigh. "Even the possibility that we could..."

Don laid a hand on his brother's shoulder. "I know what you mean, Leo."

Leo shook his head again and got to his feet, rubbing his neck with a hand and adjusting his face mask. "Splinter should be waking up about now. We should start our—"

"What's that?"

"What?"

"Dude, didn't you _feel_ that?"

"Whoa..."

Soon they all would feel it, along with every living soul on the planet.

With the force of a tsunami, what began as a violent tremor almost instantaneously became a bone-jarring quake. Without even time to react, a white blanket of absolute nothing swept and washed over New York City and ultimately the subway lair, claiming and consigning it along with the entire world in total oblivion.

**

* * *

****Mirage/Image Earth (Dimension A); New York City, December 20TH, 1990 A.D.**

Splinter meditated silently in the Turtles' mausoleum lair in Westwood Cemetery with Klunk in his lap, the incense he was burning filling his nostrils. With the peace of mind of a monastic Zen Buddhist monk, his mind remained tempered and focused.

His Utrom friend known only as "Dr. X" stirred inside the abdominal cavity of the android exoskeleton Donatello had built months ago seated across from him—detached from it, for now. There was a chess board between them, left in the state of indefinite stalemate it would always end up at. "Are you sure, Splinter, my friend?" the brain-like alien asked.

"Impossible to be," Splinter rasped. His pupils could be seen moving under his eyelids as he strained, his mind left in a state of half-consciousness as his psych scoured the reaches of the Astral Plane for the answers he sought. Nightmare after nightmare he'd witnessed, disturbing vision after disturbing vision—every one painting the same picture.

Armageddon.

"My search is... difficult," he spoke again. "The answers I seek... shrouded. A puzzle. The pieces I need to complete it... outside my reach."

Dr. X gave a frown. "Then don't exert yourself. There little use in wearing yourself out over what is probably nothing."

"No... my sons..." Splinter spoke then to himself, a coolly modulated tone to his voice. "Wherever you are, you are in grave danger... everything is in grave danger... _everything._ Something terrible is coming."

The ground began to shake...

* * *

**The End of Time (Dimension Null ); July 25TH, 3689 A.D.**

"The slate is nearly cleansed..."

Past the Homidian Evolution of the 2700s and 2800s, the False Eden of the 2900s, the Y3K Third Millennial Barrier of June 10th, 2986, and frozen in a state of artificial Null-Time centuries past the playground of the Time Warriors circa 3088, the cloaked Shogun did his grim work at the craggy summit of Italy's ominous Mount Vesuvius. Suspended at the very brink of The End of Time, the Shogun dwelled in the fraction of a millisecond in the year 3689 before Entropy—absolute nothing—consumed all of existence, as fated since Creation. It was from the Entropy that he was drawing his energies, limitless energies he was putting to use even now.

"The time is nearly here..."

On his dais, the Shogun cracked a smile under his Japanese _noh_ mask at his whirlpool-like viewer in the magma below, examining the preview snippets of his newly-emerging "Dimension E" in the year 1999 with pride. With a wave of his hand he then saw back into the year 2089, sighing as he saw a peek of a tangent; an amalgam of the best of Dimensions A, B, C, and D... a world without crime, a people living together in unification and harmony.

So different from the reality he had left behind...

"The three alternate dimensions I opened have been purged... now only two remain: Dimension A—reality—and my Dimension E—what is soon to replace it. To make the wrong things right—all things right—I must wipe the slate clean. Only then can I superimpose Dimension E as the one true reality... my masterwork, and my swan song. Zero Hour approaches... but first thing's first." In a downward spiral of utter and complete annihilation and erasure, Dimensions X, D, C, and B, twist by twist, were already wiped out of existence. Only A remained, after which there was no turning back. "Time to take care of Dimension A... and what a pity it is..."

"Think again, Shogun."

The Shogun whirled around. "Eh?"

Renet, Leonardo, Raphael, Michaelangelo, Donatello, a burly Turtle with a black bandanna, a spiked shell, and blades on its wrist who he did not recognize, and a female Turtle he also did not recognize stood on the charred rockery below the dais. Fluorescent wisps of chronal energy dissipated off of the seven figures as they finished materializing. Their weapons were drawn and ready.

"Sorry to interrupt your punk ass, but we got a score to settle," Raphael spoke, twirling a sai in each hand in a menacing manner. "Time to pay up, motherfucker."

"You destroyed my reality... killed everyone I have known and ever cared about," seethed the female Turtle, her voice both solemn and stern. She rolled two gleaming _kai mi_ balls in one hand. "Their spirits scream for vengeance... and I have come to avenge them all, _gwai-lo."_

"As have I," came the deep, authoritative voice of Slash, a twisted version of a sai in his thick hand. "The Mutanimals were the only friends I ever had."

Leonardo scraped his katana in a half circle on the rocky ground in front of his feet, then met the Shogun's gaze. "This ends here and now... _Savanti."_

The fearsome figure of the Shogun retreated back a few steps, genuinely caught off-guard by the appearance of his guests. Regaining his composure, he reared himself up to his full height before the seven. He would be forced to put his work on hold for the moment, of course—Dimension A, his own native dimension, would have its respite but he would see to it that it wouldn't be for long.

"I'm not your Savanti Romero or anyone else you may foolishly believe, but very well all the same," the Shogun thundered at his enemies. "It shall be as you say, Leonardo. It will end here... and it will end now."

NOTE : Refer to late issues of Archie Comics' _TMNT Adventures_ series for the story behind the Mighty Mutanimals' fate.


	7. Chapter 6 : The Bleeding Sky

**"Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles : Transcension"**

**Chapter Six  
T H E  
B L E E D I N G  
S K Y**

**_"Heaven often regulates effects by their causes,  
and pays the wicked what they have deserved."  
_**— Corneille

**The End of Time (Dimension Null ); July 25TH, 3689 A.D.**

"_I'm not your Savanti Romero or anyone else you may foolishly believe, but very well all the same," the Shogun thundered at his enemies. "It shall be as you say, Leonardo. It will end here... and it will end now."_

For several moments, the six Turtles and Renet Tilley stood against the Shogun, their bodies poised, their muscles supple, and their weapons at full readiness.

Renet took a place next to Leo. This chaotic trip had all started when the Council of the 79TH was slain—elders she had thought of as her family since she was a little girl—but she certainly didn't want it to end with the death of the Turtles' remaining world... and their Master.

"If there's going to be any sort of ending here, I must insist it be a good one." She held her eyes steady on the Shogun's shadowy presence. Just how he forebodingly perched himself on the rocky ledge of the volcano's crater looked quite absurd from his previous appearance in the Palisade.

"Of course it will be. My intentions are to create a world—an entire _existence_ that will become the one true reality—that is void of wrong," he rumbled with a deep, empty laughter. "Yes, a utopia. I have seen reality as I knew it from a thousand perspectives. If you could only _see_ the things I have seen! I _know_ with every fiber of my being what must be done to... rectify things—the alternate dimensions were the key. A little of that one, a dab of this one... the one, true, _only_ perfect reality. According to the Bible it took God a matter of days to create our Earth... I can do better." His grimly faceted eyes looked past to the others, then back to Renet. "But yet, they will blame you for the death of their Master. Do you not see how my future changes?"

Renet's eyes narrowed and she stole a glance from Leo.

"How _dare_ you say that! Christ, you're the one who's killing everything—every_one!"_ Leo shouted at the Shogun. "Renet told us we were here to stop you from _destroying_ our dimension."

The Shogun continued to laugh. "It has already begun. Can you not feel the losses? It is the dissolution of eternity... at the righteousness of my very fingertips."

"What if he's sayin's right..." Raphael growled low his opinion. "Fuck... she found the time to save those two weirdos from who knows where, but not Splinter!"

Slash shot Raphael a glance and proceeded to draw his only sai.

Don stepped between the two. "I invited him to come, Raph!"

Raph sneered, curling his lips into a snarl. "And you guys couldn't _make_ the time to _invite_ Splinter?"

"Guys, knock it off... Splinter can't be dead yet—we still have time." Leo glared at Raphael. "Don't screw this up now, Raph!"

"Look, guys..." Raph gave a derisive growl, doing a surprisingly good job of holding his rising anger at bay. "Enough talk already... let's _take_ this sick son of a bitch, all right?"

Giving the Shogun on last glance, Renet turned back to the four. This was not a good time to be having differences. "Ah, I'm really sorry, guys... but please, you must take my word. I know he hasn't destroyed your dimension—your reality—yet!"

"So quick to anger are they..." The Shogun shook his head, but was very much pleased with himself. That distraction was just long enough to allow him to finish the ritual to eradicate Dimension A. And as that world fell in upon itself, so would they.

But she was quicker to respond, her intuition alerting her of his deceitful intentions. Venus stepped aside from the others to snap one of her _kai mi_ into the Shogun's swirl of sorcery. Her energy exploded only to became part of his wispy aurora. He immediately released a glowing ball back at her. Its force nearly knocked Venus from the rocky cliff to the depths below.

"Venus...!" Mike hurried over to help.

"Be not so bold!" the dark figure spat at her. "You... you should have _never_ existed! An abomination... wench, there is _no_ place for you in my utopia!"

Disregarding Mike's help, Venus pulled herself back up to level ground. She held her voice low and emotionless, her heavy Asian accent still evident. "There is nothing worse than wasted potential, Shogun. You gain _nothing_ from wanton destruction... from giving up on what already exists!"

"Words spoken in the utmost vain—in ignorance... and I can assure you, ignorance is _not_ bliss. Time and all of Creation are my playthings... how can you possibly hope to stand against me?" The Shogun was beginning to raise his ornate Spear of Destiny from under his veils to strike when a peculiar familiarity seemed to pass between the minds of this Chinese Turtle shinobi and his own. Renet felt this, too, as fleeting and strange as it was.

"N-no... you will never understand my... th-these _wrongs,"_ he sputtered in contempt, correcting himself in mid-sentence. "Perhaps you would have, one day... but I _cannot_ allow that future to unfold. Not again, _never_ again! Not if I can stop it; _not_ if I can make everything right again!" And the Shogun, in a swirl of glowing sparkles, sent enough energies through the remnants of Italy's Mount Vesuvius to summon up again its devastating lava and steam. The crater's edge began to crumble in the increasing quakes of the volcano.

Renet quietly chanted to herself as a cold mist enveloped the Shogun. She hoped to freeze his actions of destruction, to slow down the dimensional devastation. It pained her all the more that she could not simply trap him to another time era, as she did to the authentic Savanti. The Shogun took most of her Timestress powers when he destroyed the Council in the 79TH. He did have a tendency to repel whatever magic they put on him. This in mind, it presented another option she should try. To turn the dimension-eating Entropy on himself.

On cue, Leo and Venus braved the rocking terrain to make their attack on the tyrant. Clutching the rock with all fours, Slash crept after as well. His only intent was vengeance against the havoc The Shogun cast on his people.

The edge of the crater the other Turtles trod suddenly collapsed, taking Mike and Raph. The rock slide splashed into lava that had begun to gurgle up below. Fortunately, Don's speedy cybernetic reflexes and bionic agility allowed him to send down a metal hooked rope from his hand to catch Mike. He couldn't get Raph, unfortunately. Raph managed to dig his sai into the crater's wall, many meters down and unbearably close to the rising lava. Don fretted if his small helicopter feature was powerful enough to lift Raph back up. He glanced once at the battle raged on the Shogun... time was running out.

The Shogun burst out in flames to free himself from Renet's icy hold before Leo could attack him with the swords. The mystic fire flowed from the old wizard and wrapped around the Turtle like a slippery, hungry snake. Leo immediately dropped his searing hot sword and sought a way to put out the fire consuming his bandanna and flesh. He fell to his knees from a sudden tremor rocking through the volcano.

"Leonardo..." Venus tried to stand up again, spent from the fierce kick the Shogun delivered a minute earlier. She watched his misery end and magically heal in a blue glow from Renet's chronal magic.

Astonished, Leo gingerly touched his healed face and arms.

"Thank you," he offered. He turned around to locate his katana to advance upon the Shogun again, but paused. The dark Shogun and Renet hovered above the crater's edge, grabbling at each other with sparks of magic. She attempted to wrest the Spear from him, while he tried to deflect her with what he could. But Renet had locked her energy field into his, so he couldn't knock her away. Then Leo's eye dimly caught sight of Slash, hidden amongst the quaking shadows of rock, watching the two. The gnarled Turtle held his sai balanced in his hand, poised, just waiting for that perfect moment to strike like an assassin in hiding.

Darkened clouds of steam and soot made the stormy sky grown dark. Those effects from The Shogun's power seemed to have confused the muddled clouds into various swirling vortices. Off to the west horizon sat an invisible sun while the full moon rising in the east turned an unnatural blood red. A strong gale wind suddenly blasted into the crater. Leo grabbed at the slopping incline of rock next to him before slipping. Faint yells came through the din... Don and Mike clung to the crater side, feverishly pulling up Raph.

A sudden light blinded all of them, accompanied with one lone deathly scream. The very air now felt charged with an ethereal kind of energy.

_"... do not harm the land or the sea or the trees until we put a seal on the foreheads of..."_ a faint voice resonated from all around, _"... woe, woe, _**woe** _to the inhabitants of the earth, because the trumpet blasts are about to be sounded by the other three... "_

_The Apocalypse...? No, my lord, shant it be time yet! _Renet thoughts screamed in her last desperate attempt to stop the onslaught.

A hush fell over the ancient volcano.

As their sights returned, the ground now stood quiet. Swirls of steam wafted up from the seething crater into the clearing skies above. The only sound was that of Raph finally scrabbling to the top of what was left of the cliff. But all eyes went to Renet, bearing her recovered Sceptre of the Sands of Time in her hands. The Shogun laid as a drained figure on the ground near her.

She sighed heavily, woefully. "Sorry... you never had the right be like a god either."

Leonardo quickly glanced around for a headcount. Only Slash came up missing. But his thoughts drifted elsewhere, as he found he was suddenly feeling strangely dizzy and weak. He sat down to put a hand to his pounding head, wondering if the fire had something to do with it.

"Wha—"

"Time to _pay,_ Shogun!"

Slash's voice. Above.

As Slash rushed out from his place of concealment, the two engaged in a vicious mêlée, Slash immediately carrying the element of surprise with a flying kick to the back of the Shogun's head. The two opponents' movements became nearly a blur, the sounds of their blocking and parrying each other's blows and grunting the only way for the other Turtles and Renet to make sense of the battle.

"You _bleed!"_ Slash seethed in his bass-laden deep voice, doubling back from an assault and showing his spiked teeth. Traces of crimson could be seen gleaming on the Turtle's twisted version of a sai.

"And so do you."

Slash felt a slight tingling sensation he couldn't quite describe. His facial features began to ease as his gaze deliberately slowly traveled down to the source—the Shogun's handheld tanto dagger, jutting out of his frontal plastron and gut. "You..." Slash seethed, the anger broiling back into his expression. He spit his own blood in his enemy's masked face. "I'll see you in _hell,_ Shogun!"

"You may, at that." With that, the Shogun reared back, sheathed his tanto, and drove the Spear of Destiny he bore in his other hand into Slash's midsection. The death blow. The holy artifact pierced Slash's shell and flesh like a hot knife through butter.

The burly Turtle fell. Bracing a booted foot against Slash's chest, with a look of repugnance that could be detected even with his _noh_ mask on, the Shogun withdrew his Spear and stood away from the still body of his slain adversary.

* * *

_"Slash!"_

Into position now, cautiously, Renet knelt not far behind the Shogun. The sai Slash had speared him with, the pain of which momentarily diverting the Shogun's attention from his spellcasting, helped her cast a spell that did the same thing he had done before the six Turtles had arrived minutes ago—reaching beyond the frozen nexus that was The End of Time for all of existence, she drew upon the limitless anti-matter energies of Entropy. She used it not to utterly erase alternate dimensions from existence or birth new ones, as he had. Not quite.

"Whuh-what is this... no... _nooo!"_

No, Renet simply turned it against he who wielded it; she turned it back on The Shogun. It took every ounce of her power, utilized everything she had ever been taught, and every bit of her concentration... but she was pleased to see her efforts appeared to have been successful.

_"You..._ how could you?" the old Shogun wheezed his words to Renet.

Renet sensed how the Entropy slowly ate away at the Shogun's immortality then like a fast, malignant cancer. Visually, its effects were almost instantaneous. The Shogun crumpled to his knees, the component atoms and molecules in his body themselves already beginning to waver.

"No," The Shogun interrupted her attempt to reply. There was a solemn tone to his voice then, while formerly so coolly modulated. "No, no... don't answer that... I'll tell you." He slowly reached up to pull his Japanese _noh_ mask down.

Renet recoiled with shock, stepping away. She'd had a feeling... but this... _this_ was extreme. A hush fell over the observing Turtles as they watched in mutual disbelief.

The unmasked Shogun looked very much just like one of the Turtles—at a ripe elderly age—but with the addition of a cloak, Savanti's horned helm, and vaguely samurai-esque armor that complemented the other miscellaneous regalia he was clad in. A closer look revealed, even with the wrinkles, that it could be none other.

The Shogun was Leonardo.

"I am Leonardo," the unmasked Shogun confirmed her suspicions, "One and the same as you knew... over there." He exhaled sharply as he nodded to the other, a slight wheeze to his breath.

"Damn you..." The younger Leonardo, apparently himself also wrought with pain perhaps from the scuffle, cringed at the weakened Shogun with clenched fists. "You're not me... you _can't_ be! Lies!"

"I _am_ you," the Shogun spoke, his voice leaving no question. "Older... wiser, I had thought."

"How.. did you come to this?" Renet knelt back down.

He coughed, trying to regain his composure. "There was a time, beyond this... beyond this, but closer than you think. We had lain our Master Splinter to rest... little by little, we drifted apart... perhaps it was inevitable..." His painful gaze slowly shifted to the ground, the memories becoming more than he could bear in his present condition. "But after that, we... I couldn't help you, my brothers, through the pain of his loss. I was never a good enough leader... never as good as Splinter wanted me to be, damn him; never as good as you all needed me to be..." he solemnly went on. "Raphael was the first to leave; Donatello not long afterward. And then Michaelangelo went to another place in hopes that would help... but I heard his depression got the better of him."

Renet held her tongue, only looking away with some disapproval. She began to realize, with the Shogun's death, would also mean the death of the 19 year-old Leonardo. They were the same being from the same dimension—reality—only from different points in its twists within the timestream.

"But I tried... God, I tried. I tried to pull them back together for a reunion. Had to be strong... had to be the leader..." His gaze grew distant. "They still found something to add to the void we created, instead of closing it."

"That wasn't your fault," Michaelangelo spoke to the Shogun, "but what you've done to all the people you've just killed... that's all you, man. That's all you."

The Shogun nodded bitterly, grinning weakly at the same time. A bit of their Leonardo shone through, if only just a little. "Mikey... you speak the truth, as always. I wish I had your spirit... your... humanity." He gave a sigh, then a cough. "After the reunion in New York, after we were all together... and after we all drifted apart again... I found the means to time-travel back... I stopped Splinter's needless death. I _stopped_ it!" The pain in the Shogun's words almost made it unbearable for him to speak them. "I killed the DARPA agents that had killed our master in my time with my bare hands... and Splinter didn't die this time, not from those bastards." He winced. "But th-this just postponed the inevitable... our Master Splinter still died, years later, this time of natural causes. The result was the same, we drifted apart—I had changed nothing. _Nothing!"_ The Shogun weakly slammed his fist on the rocky ground. "How long I have lived like a failure... over 80 years I have lived, broken in both spirit and soul."

"I-I suppose..." the younger Leonardo wheezed, himself now almost in a similar state as the Shogun, "... you think we should _pity _you... forget you're a _murderer..."_

The Shogun closed his eyes upon hearing his younger self's words. He shut them out, going on, "A voice began speaking to me in the Astral Plane, explaining of how reality can be altered... how I could erase all this pain." He shook his head in remembrance. "It sounded all too wonderful—to bring back the love and fulfillment of a complete family in a perfect world... honor restored... redemption mine for the taking." The old Leonardo let a sorrow-filled sigh. "Did you not see, my brothers? Did you not see in the dimensions I sent you... did you not see how the four of us—or five of us, in one case—stuck together? How we persevered? My intentions... honorable, I swear it on every fiber of my being." He laid his head down and closed his pained eyes. He didn't have long now. "Now I have lost... I have failed... again. My deliverance... my swan song... in _vain."_

Renet noticed the others now stood near her, watching and listening in graven silence. Don noticed the younger Leo's serious condition, and stayed with his brother. He grew all the more concerned when finding Leo's pulse suddenly became impossible.

The future Leonardo gazed past Renet and Venus at his three younger brothers behind sunken eyes. There was no evil to be found in them—none, only sadness, loneliness, and failure. "Don't forget your brotherhood..." His voice growing rougher, the Shogun strained to make his final words known to everyone, "Please... then, if anything... please remember the true forces that bind you. Without love, the mind... nothing. The heart... a gaping hole—so much more painful than the Entropy that eats away the very matter of my existence this moment—and hope... lost forever. Remember... or my life's work will be... for naught... sorry... _so sorry..."_ He ended. A hollow sound surrounded him and his body vanished.

There, at the End of Time, the menace of The Shogun was finally at an end.

"Leo...! What...?" they heard Don shout from behind. Renet turned to meet his shock. "Leo... our Leo, he's... he disappeared, too!"

"No..." Raph breathed through gritted teeth, his face twitching with a rage of emotion boiling underneath.

Venus looked to Renet after a long, uneasy silence. "Can you not bring back the dimensions that were destroyed? There must be a way, there must!"

"No," the young Mistress of Time replied grimly. "It would be one thing if the Shogun had merely closed the doors to the dimensions he opened... but he wiped them out altogether, total erasure. And Leo..." She gave a helpless sigh, her slender shoulders sagging. "I just don't know."

The others stood, looking at Renet and each other in dismay. But before another word was said, everything flashed coma white. Their next sight was of the walls in Mike's apartment—actually, April and Casey's—back in their own New York City, and no more than a few hours from the time they left by the time on the clock atop the TV (unless a day or two had passed). But, like waking up from a bad dream, they hoped to see Leonardo—their Leonardo—with them again. They didn't.

He was gone. Truly gone.

"My sons... how I have missed you all. And... a fifth among you...?"

Splinter stood before them in the living room minus Renet, knowing, caring, understanding what had happened. He whispered to them then, beckoning to his surrogate sons and new daughter with his arms and embracing his remaining sons in a huddle for reassurance. Showing how great the unabated power of love can be, when exercised; how devastating anger could become, if left unchecked.

The Turtles were home. And not alone.

The Shogun's grim lesson would not be a lesson soon forgotten.

_**"You and me  
We're in this together now  
None of them can stop us now  
We will make it through somehow  
You and me  
If the world should break in two**_

**_"Until the very end of me  
Until the very end of you."  
_**— T. Reznor


	8. Epilogue

**"Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles : Transcension"**

**Epilogue**

_tran-scend__ (tran-send') v. **1. a.** To pass beyond (a human limit). **b.** To exist above and independent of (material experience or the universe). **2.** To surpass._

**Mirage/Image Earth (Dimension A); New York City, January 21ST, 1991 A.D.**

Long after April, Casey, and Shadow had turned in for the night, the Turtles and their sensei remained seated around the dinner table in the apartment. They weren't eating or meditating—nothing of the sort, clearly not the typical activity for a Friday night.

It had been a month now since the Turtles had returned from their extra-dimensional romp and final stand against The Shogun. After helping Pimiko take out the Lady Shredder they'd celebrated Christmas together and wrought in the New Year, even inviting Radical, Lucindra (at Raphael's behest), and Chang Lao (at Splinter's behest). A month, and they still hadn't wholly reconciled everything that had happened of late. They had lost a brother, yet gained a sister.

A sister... yet, not one in blood. The seventeen year-old Mei Pieh Chi—"Venus DeMilo," as the Michaelangelo of her ill-fated dimension had once named her—had been welcomed into the Turtles' fold, rounding them out as four with Leonardo's disappearance... and assumed death.

A blessing in disguise?

For so long the nineteen year-old Turtles' isolation and loneliness had been such a given that it had become part of their character. They were the only four of their kind, and when they died that would be the end of them—end of story. Even though Venus was like a sister to them, she represented an irrefutable symbol of hope to the three brothers left; a symbol of hope that the Turtles' kind was not doomed to extinction.

They had already reconciled that. It was discussed and over with, the parts of which better left unsaid left as such. It was something else that was troubling them, something they had tried to ignore the past month but had finally managed to catch up with them.

"God," Mike finally burst. His gaze traveled over Raphael, Donatello, and Splinter, finally coming to rest on Venus. "Where is Leo?"

The Turtles averted their gaze, each trapped in their own private worlds of hurt. They had no answer. Not even Renet could have an answer.

"In the hand of fate, my son," Splinter finally spoke, the old rat's balanced voice trying to coax his pupils' anxiety and pain. The effort fell inevitably short. "In the hand of fate."

**

* * *

****Earth (Dimension Null ); July 21ST, 2000 A.D.**

"Leon! Oh, thank _god_ you're all right!"

"Stupid brother..."

"Gave us quite a scare, son. Here, lemme help you up..."

Leonardo rubbed his eyes with balled fists and tried to blink away the dizziness to no avail.

_My hand... I can feel my hand..._

Had he fallen asleep; been rendered unconscious during what was to be the final confrontation with The Shogun? He must have, but he couldn't remember. The recent memories in his mind... a jumble of mismatched thoughts and impulses; vibrant colors and blurred shapes without substance.

"That's what you get for swordfighting with your sister, Leon."

"Stupid brother... he thinks he's a ninja turtle."

He did remember some things. He remember his brothers around him... The End of Time... a mountain of some kind... Renet... a female Turtle... a burly Turtle... The Shogun, struck by his own power... taking off his mask... showing them all... showing them... It hit Leo all at once—The Shogun was _him!_ Older—_decades_ older—but him nonetheless, and from the same dimension; the same reality.

Before that revelation, he'd managed to convince himself it was Savanti Romero under that _noh_ mask. Savanti, Go-Komodo, a resurrected Oroku Saki—_anybody_ but the person his instinct told him the Shogun truly was... _himself._

"Mom, why is Leon crazy?"

"Don't talk bad about your brother, Lisa."

"Yes, this is a special time for him. Don't you understand that, dear?"

The question then posed itself in his inner psyche—is that who he would one day be destined to become, a murderer of billions? Not if he could help it. He would _die_ first.

"Splin... ter?" he whispered at the voices that evidently knew his name, barely audible. He drew himself back at the sound of his own voice—it was high-pitched, almost squealy... not his own, to be sure. His vision slowly refocused, the looming figures hovering over him coming into clear view. Two older-looking humans—a balding male and a female in her thirties, husband and wife by the look of them—and a pre-adolescent, freckle-faced girl with her copper-toned hair in pigtails.

No, not Splinter. Most definitely not Splinter.

Something was just not right.

Before another moment passed and he had any more time to consider his situation, Leonardo found his hand being grabbed by the man and himself being helped to his feet whether he liked it or not. Why had he been holding a bent plastic sword? he wondered.

"Who are you?" he asked. "Do I know you?"

"Leon... stop being so silly."

"Stop calling me Leon, damn it!" Leonardo snapped, taking a fighting stance by instinct. "My name is Leonardo, lady!"

The man and woman exchanged a look before the man turned an angered glance down at him. "Don't you _ever_ talk to your mother like that, young man!" he snarled. "Don't think you're too old for me to take you over my knee!"

Leon winced. He couldn't remember ever feeling so helpless, so unable to stand up for himself.

_No... wait, _he decided. He _could_ remember—when he was just a kid; when Splinter had taught him the meaning of discipline and honor from the time of he and his brothers' mutation into their early teenage years—_that_ was when he felt that helpless.

"You're almost eleven now, Leon... pretty soon people are going to expect you to start acting mature. You know that, right?"

"Leave me alone!" he shouted, more than fed up at this point.

"All right, all right..." the woman spoke, her voice softening. "We came here for you anyway."

"We... did?" Leo spoke, confused. "Where?"

"Well, we're in San Diego, California, aren't we? You said you wanted to meet the Turtles' creator, didn't you?"

"Creator...?" Leonardo frowned, scratching his head. Did he feel hair there? He shook the notion off, but refused to check again.

"Just remember to meet us at the trolley by four, okay?"

He nodded in affirmation just to be rid of the three of them. It worked, and they were on their way. Disoriented more than ever as they left him to do their own thing in the nearby city, Leonardo took a moment to examine himself. Realizing for the first time, he saw he was not himself. Not at all.

A cursory glance at himself revealed he was wearing a loose T-shirt with the face and logo of someone called "The Rock," with the words in quote marks beneath: "Layeth The Smacketh Down." Whatever that meant. From how he gauged himself, he was no taller than four feet, and somewhat skinny for his age even by human reckoning. Yes...

He was a human. A human kid, only eleven if his "mother" was to be believed.

Sauntering forth, he saw where he had been heading with his "parents" and "sister." It was a grand, coliseum-like structure by the coast. A banner was draped near its frontal entrances: "San Diego Comic-Con International 2000, July 20 - 23."

"A comic convention?" Leonardo pondered to himself aloud. Something Michaelangelo might have gone to when he was a couple of years younger, perhaps. Shrugging, he approached one of the entrances, wading his way through the mob of various youths and older people alike. Before he reached one of the doors, he frowned as he saw a man in his young twenties with his girlfriend, the man dressed up like Superman and the woman dressed up like Wonder Woman—both were leaning against one wall for a smoke break.

"How's it going, kid? You have fun in there."

Blending in perfectly, the security guards—all of them seeming to radiate a false sense of self-importance—nodded at the odd badge Leonardo only then realized he had clamped onto his T-shirt and admitted him inside.

Stepping within the "Convention Center" structure, he immediately found himself immersed in... an environment he would rather not be in. Youths dressed in dark, gothic-attire seemed to have their place in the convention, the same with the abundant presence of costume-wearing comic aficionados. And then there were just the plain weirdos.

He passed by a muscle-toned man who had painted his skin green and somehow managed to glue a fin onto his head.

"Officer... _Dragon?"_ he murmured inaudibly. He and his brothers back home had met the Savage Dragon, three times to date. Was he now a comic book celebrity? It didn't make sense.

Leonardo took a deep breath. Whatever dimension he was trapped in, whatever human body he was trapped in now, there had to be a way out and it had to be near. If someone was playing a trick on him, all clues were pointing to this "creator" his "mother" had mentioned. And he was inside this building.

A thin man dressed in mostly-black was sitting at a nearby table signing autographs like it was going out of style, the nametag on his shirt identifying him as "Frank Miller." Figuring he could probably point him in the direction of the "creator," Leonardo waited patiently in line until it was his turn to get an autograph.

"I'm looking for, uh... the creator," he stammered out.

Miller smiled tersely. "I guess you've found him. _Sin City, The Dark Kn—"_

"You created me? You created, ah, mutant ninja turtles?"

Miller's smile fast turned into a scowl. "You're looking for Kevin Eastman. He's over there. You see him? Good. Now get the fuck out of here, kid."

"Grow up, kid," the twenty-something man snarled behind Leo after Miller dismissed him. "Turtles are _out."_

_"So_ out. How did that old song go?" another nearby joked, laughing at Leo. "'Tee-nage Mu-tant Nin-ja Tur-tles, heroes in a half shell... Turtle Power!'"

Wasting no time going to where Miller directed him, Leonardo located the short line before the man he'd pointed out as "Kevin Eastman." Fairly quickly the line shrunk to two, the teenager in front of Leo taking a long time talking to Eastman, a man with sharp features, a mustache, and a black skullcap. He seemed to have a casual demeanor about him at the moment, not the authoritative, "get outta my face, leave me alone" one that odd "Miller" character exhibited.

The creator? He certainly didn't _seem_ like an enemy, though looks could be deceiving.

"So where's Laird these days?" the teenaged boy asked. He seemed fairly enthusiastic, obviously a fan.

"Still riding bikes, doing that comic of his with Lawson... hard to keep track of these days," the polite-faced man answered. "Kinda a recluse."

"Too bad... so what's up with the Turtles these days? I mean, shit... the comic's been cancelled, what, three times already? Then the Archie series, the cartoon, _Ninja Turtles: The Next Mutation..._ droppin' off like flies!"

A genuinely saddened expression crept over Eastman's features before quickly vanishing. Replacing it was a facade, an elated expression that spoke of hope and great things to come. "Well, I don't know what to tell ya... we've always got projects cooking up at Mirage. Never can tell what's in the works, you know."

"Another movie? Please tell me another movie."

Movie? A _movie_ about he and his brothers? In his reality—in fact, in every dimension he and his brothers had been cast in their recent romp—the Turtles lived in secret, in shadow... their lives and very existence relegated to that of outcasts that human society would never see or know, for they would never welcome them.

_Where the hell was he!_

"Don't want to jump the gun so soon—"

"So _soon?"_ the teenager interrupted Eastman. "Are you kidding me? Man, it's been like six years since _Turtles III_ came out, and that one sucked!"

"Well... you know how Hollywood goes..."

"All right, yeah. Won't take up any more of your time then."

"No bother. Sometimes you fans are all that keeps me going."

_"Please,_ man... like _Heavy Metal_ and all that _FAKK_ business isn't enough. And shit... look at your _wife,_ dude! _Wow!"_

Eastman stifled a chuckle, his ruse obviously called. "Well..."

"Nice meeting you and all, again." The two shook hands, then the teenager turned to Leonardo before walking off to other parts of the convention. "Your turn, kiddo," he spoke.

Leonardo nodded, then moved up to Eastman's table. The table itself seemed to be part of a "stand" of a sort, one labeled "Words & Pictures Museum." Curiously, he folded his arms in front of the mustached man. "Ah, hello, Mr. Eastman," Leonardo began, not sure how to. "My name is Leonardo."

"Cool, man!" Kevin said immediately. Extending a hand, he shook Leo's rather firmly. "Guess that makes me your creator, wouldn't it? Just kidding!"

"Actually..."

"Say, the Mirage Leo was always the coolest, wasn't he? It was always between Leo and Raph in my mind... but y'know. Hey, remember when Leo whacked off Shredder's head back in #21?"

Leonardo remembered. He remembered well.

The question was raised in his subconscious... if this was another alternate dimension, how did this man _know_ about that? Leo's entire life, his adventures... just pages out of a damned kids' funnybook?

He'd traveled to the strange dimension where he'd met his brothers' counterparts and defeated their nemesis Krang and his own brothers had traveled to similar dimensions. Yet as they traveled to each one, they'd thought of those dimensions as strictly "alternate dimensions," and their home dimension as "reality." The Shogun maintained that, even calling their dimension "Dimension A": reality. Yet here Leonardo was, talking to he and his brothers' "creator."

_God,_ Leo thought, _can _this _be reality?_

"Nobody expected that, did they? Not at that time, anyway," Eastman mused. He shrugged, taking Leo's lack of a response as a cue to go on. "After the cartoon and movies, everyone reading the comics was like: hey, I thought Leo wore a blue bandanna. And where's that letter on his belt? Damned Playmates... but I digress. Times aren't as they were, but you probably knew that."

"That's right. They aren't." Leonardo suddenly found himself faltering. The man seemed more than forthcoming, and he couldn't seem to detect any duplicity in him. He would hear him out before anything, learn whatever he could about this strange dimension he was in and this man's connection to it. "You created my brothers and I?"

Eastman nodded. "Yep, that's right, I created the Ninja Turtles. Most people don't realize it all started in the comics... all back in 1984. Yep. A good year. A crazy year, but a good year. You know Marvel actually came up t—"

"Now what do you mean... you 'created' them?" Leo pressed, sensing the answer was close. He wasn't sure if that was something he should be happy about or not.

"Hmmm... let me show you something, kid."

"Leonardo," Leo said. "My name's Leonardo."

"Right. Leonardo. Sorry, I forgot." Eastman gave a laugh. "Anyway, let me show you something—the certain something that got this whole thing started." Kevin Eastman smiled, pulling a small napkin out from under the table. "Let's see here... yeah, this is one of the first ones I sketched. Peter doodled some himself that I inked, but this is pretty much how it got started."

Dumbstruck, Leonardo's eyes widened as he looked down at the inked-over pencil sketch on the napkin—it was a depiction of a stout Turtle, flat-faced, stubby-limbed, with a large bandanna and big kneepads.

Kevin gave a wry smile, tucking the napkin back away. "Kinda crude, huh? Everything's gotta start somewhere."

* * *

You continue staring into the browser window of your computer's monitor—from the comfort of home, the distraction of school, the bustle of work, the portability of a laptop incognito, the relative silence of a library... it does not matter.

The story's epilogue continuing to play out as you read these very words, you're left to wonder... who or what transcended, and what will happen next? Was it Leonardo? Was it Venus? You're not sure, but you know you can't be.

Yet in pulling the scroll bar further down you confirm what you already knew to await you at the end of the chapter you read now. With emotions known only to yourself at this moment, you know now you have at last reached the end.

Perhaps, you think to yourself, the only one who transcended... was you. Every time you open a book, a comic book, turn on the TV, go to the movies, or play a video game... escape your own reality and immerse yourself in alternate dimensions abound. After all, what is life itself, but not a dream to wake up from?

Where will you go from here?

**FIN**

**_"Yesterday is not ours to recover,  
but tomorrow is ours to lose."  
_**—**Lyndon B. Johnson**


	9. Coda : Second Chances

**"Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles : Transcension"**

**Coda  
S E C O N D  
C H A N C E S**

**Earth (Dimension Null ); Los Angeles, CA, December 2ND, 2000 A.D.**

It had been several months since Leonardo had first found himself trapped in the body of an eleven year-old human boy—"Leon"—following the bout with his future self at the End of Time.

The former leader of the Ninja Turtles spent his time trying desperately to convince himself this all was some kind of dream, albeit a sick one. What terrified him was how he seemed to be slowly slipping into the routine of his new human life... was it possible that he truly was a human boy and had been one all his life, perhaps some kind of head trauma causing him to "imagine" his life as a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle?

He was left with plenty of questions, questions that had, over the passing months, lost their frustrating edge. Was he truly a adolescent human boy, his adventures as Leonardo the Ninja Turtle just a boyhood fantasy? If not, and he had merely possessed the body of a human boy, then what had become of the boy whose body he had possessed? Clearly this "Leon" boy had been a fan of the Turtles, to say the least—was it only by coincidence?

In some of his free time—he found he had plenty of it when not forced into going to Elementary School by his so-called parents—Leo watched videos his human self had apparently bought that held footage on the lives of the Turtles he had met in Dimension C when they had confronted their native Shredder and Krang enemies. Live action they were not—they were cartoons, of all things—but the characters were unmistakable.

_If only I had taken them with me, perhaps we could have won with their aid,_ he thought to himself aguishly.

His train of thought was quickly broken by his "mother" who called him, "Leon, Lori's here to see you!"

"Who?" Leo was puzzled momentarily when he saw a pretty blonde girl entered his room.

She looked somewhat resembling one of Casey's daughter Shadow's friends he'd seen a picture of. "Hi, Leon. I heard you hit your head while you were in California, so I was worried you might not be able to go with me to that N'Sync concert."

"What? Oh of course not. I'll go." _Oh, why the hell not?_ he asked himself. Something more along the lines of Kid Rock or Eminem sounded more in order, but twelve year-old humans had little say in things, he was discovering.

"That's good," the girl said smiling. "I'm surprised you still like those turtle guys. I'll never forget when my sister first babysat us and her boyfriend had that Turtles movie, and you just loved it!"

Leo chuckled amusedly to himself, _a movie about me and my brothers_, when suddenly the girl froze solid. "L-Lori?" Leo suddenly noticed he had gotten his regular voice back. He noticed the boy named Leon, who he had been trapped in the body of was right beside him and... and that he was once again a full-blooded Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle in both mind and body alike now.

"What the hell?" No sooner did he say it than—**WHOOSH!**

* * *

**Cartoon Earth (Dimension C); New York City, December 20TH, 1995 A.D.**

Leonardo blinked as he saw himself back in the lair with the Turtles he met in the alternate reality. "What's going on?"

"Just kick some shell out there for us, dude," Mike said as he did before. "Turtle Power."

Renet once again stood next to him. "Leonardo, I have pleaded with Lord Simultaneous in order to give your spirit a shot for redemption."

Leo looked bewildered. "Why... _why_ was I a human boy?"

Renet shook her head and responded, "It doesn't matter now, we have a grievous error in time to fix. We must do as you said before and take these Turtles and their sensei with us."

The Leonardo of the cartoonish world repeated himself, "Yes, but like we said, this is your battle, not ours."

"But don't you see?" Renet said. "The Turtles of that Leo's reality can't have their world destroyed if they aren't there. Same as this reality. If the four of you are relinquished along with us, your world may be spared."

"Well, I suppose it couldn't hurt," Donatello said.

"What do you think, Master?" Raphael asked.

"It is possible, admittedly," Splinter spoke.

"Then let us hurry." The ground suddenly began to crumble as it did this moment in time before. "Quickly, we must leave—_now!"_

Leonardo, the Turtles of Dimension C and their Master Splinter leapt into the portal as Renet closed it behind. The crumbling immediately ceased, and all was quiet once more.

**

* * *

****The End of Time (Dimension Null ); July 25TH, 3689 A.D.**

Suspended at the very brink of The End of Time in the year 3689, the Shogun dwelled in the fraction of a millisecond before Entropy—absolute nothing—enveloped all of existence.

"_Blast!_ Something has gone wrong. The slate in Dimension C has not been properly erased—I cannot begin the procedure on the other two Dimensions until it is fixed! And if not, the one world I have deleted might eventually be recast as it previously was, and all my plans will be for naught!"

"Yeah, no shit!" a voice rang out.

The Shogun reeled around to witness Dimension A's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles materializing and behind them their counterparts from the Dimension C Earth.

Renet stepped in with two more Turtles flanking her sides: Slash from Dimension D that had been momentarily erased, and Venus from the Dimension B Earth. The C-Turtles' sensei also appeared next to both Leonardos.

"You may as well pay the piper now, buddy!" C-Raph yelled.

His counterpart turned around and said, "Man, this is weird, you're even goofier looking than the me I met earlier!"

Michaelangelo grinned and said, "Just do me a favor, and don't go fighting with this Raph, too." C-Mike stared gawk-eyed at his doppelganger as C-Don did at his who had apparently become cybernetic. They all seemed so incredibly different... and yet all at the same time, so similar.

Slash quickly interrupted their daze by shouting "The Mutanimals were the only friends I ever had, Shogun! You killed them, you... _evil jerk!"_ Not the most creative of taunts, but it seemed to have its desired effect.

The C-Turtles all gasped as they noticed him. "What the heck is _he_ doing here?" C-Leo asked.

"He, he came with me. His name is Slash," Donatello noted with a shrug. "Said something about the vultures naming him that—mean anything to you guys...?"

"We know him," C-Don said, "only, that can't be the same Slash we know. Is it?"

Renet shook her head and answered, "No, that is a different Slash, one that the Turtles of his dimension call their demented _cousin_."

"Speaking of which, don't we have our own realities to save?" Raphael mentioned.

"Yeah, let's do it!" his C self responded. The two of them whipped out their sai as the two Leonardos took out their swords. Michaelangelo drew out his nunchuks and much to his surprise, saw C-Mike take out what looked like a grappling hook with a rope attached to it. "Umm, just why in the hell are you using those?" he asked politely.

"Oh... this? Well, let's just say after some little accidents with my 'chucks I decided not to use them too much."

The impressive gathering of ten Turtles rushed the Shogun head-on then, who created a large electro-magnetic bubble that kept him safe from their blows.

"Dang it! This isn't looking too good, guys," C-Leo said.

The Shogun turned off his cloak as Slash attempted to rush him again, which he did. The Shogun aimed a razor-sharp spear—the Spear of Destiny, allegedly one and the same as the relic that pierced the body of Jesus Christ as he lay on the cross in 0 A.D.—at the crazy Turtle's throat.

"_No!" _Venus screamed as she pulled Slash's face out of the way just in time as the spear barely pierced her fore-skin. Both Raphaels then jumped Shogun at the side causing his Japanese _noh_ mask to fall off, revealing himself to be a replication of the Leonardo from Dimension A. An older version, but the same Turtle nonetheless.

"Holy guacamole!" C-Mike yelled at the revelation.

"Huh!" the other Michaelangelo shrugged.

"Yes, Leonardo. It is I, your future self."

"I know who you are, pal, I've been here before, at this exact same moment in time!" he spat. "And Renet was kind enough to ask Lord Simultaneous that she could reverse the timestream enough so that you... me... I, can have a second chance. Will you take it? Will you be the lesser of all evil?"

The Shogun Leo eyed his younger self first in consideration, then confusion, and finally anger before screaming in resolution, "_Never!" _

"Then I have no choice, but to put an end to this evil you've started, by making sure it never happens."

C-Leo looked concerned at his counterpart. "Wh-what... what are you saying, Leonardo?"

Leonardo drew the katana from the stump of his wrist as did the Shogun/Future Leonardo. Splinter looked calmly at the three versions of his finest pupil while Donatello and C-Raph held Slash back.

"I don't think I want to watch this," Raph said. C-Don, Venus, both Michaelangelos and the other Raphael meanwhile had found the console from which the Shogun's spell had been cast.

"Well, whaddya know!" Don placed his hand into the spacey vastness of the universal alignment that the Shogun had attempted to shatter with his Entropy.

"That hole there must be where the world this Slash comes from belongs," C-Mike spoke. He meant, of course, Dimension C's Earth that he had come to call home, not the toxic dumpworld of Morbus that lay in Dimension X from which he had presumably been spawned.

"Well, maybe we can get him to help us fix it," Venus suggested.

She and Renet kindly took Slash by the hand and walked him to the odd console. "Slash, do you think you can help re-animate your reality?" Renet asked him.

"I-I do not know."

"Think back on the memories you had, of the people you've met. Krang, Bellybomb, the Turtles, the Mutanimals." It was that word that made Slash shake quietly. Tears emerged as he began to sobb their names like Candy did, "Leatherhead... Man Ray... Dreadmon... Jagwar... Wingnut... Screwloose... and Mondo. Candy's Mondo! _M-Mondooo!"_ The rage built up in him as he plunged his face into the vortex. C-Don and Donatello quickly pulled him back, when they suddenly noticed that the Archie universe had been restored as it was prior to its demise and Slash began to be transported back to it.

"Just like that!" C-Raph boasted.

"Yes," Renet announced, "he and the people of his world shall have no memory of this cosmic intervention."

Donatello scratched at the temple of his chrome head. "So you mean... they don't remember meeting me?"

Renet shook her head again. "No, Donny. And as for you, Shogun Leo, you are to be returned to your rightful place in time."

Her attempt at disrupting the struggle between the three Leos caused the Shogun to break free. Donatello took out his hand rifle and tried blocking the Shogun who took out his blade and struck Don's Cybernetic body components, and circuits, causing a neural overload in his system. Blood and sparks began to flow. "_No!" _

Leonardo, Michaelangelo and Raphael all grabbed their fallen brother while the C-Turtles angrily beat the Shogun to a pulp. "You jerk-faced dork—" shouted Raph, "—of a bro—" Mike continued, "—from another dimension in time-space!" Don finished.

Leo was the last to hear the Shogun, who lay in a barely conscious state, say, "I would suppose... I deserved it."

C-Leo stared coldly at his counterpart's future self. A silent, grim look of understanding was exchanging.

"You sure did," Renet quipped. "And now, Shogun... we banish _you!"_ The young Mistress of Time opened a time hole and the Turtles tossed the Shogun into it in short order, sending the villainous incarnation of Leonardo back to his own time in 2089 A.D. Dimension A.

Donatello was in critically bad shape and fading fast. His brothers knew it.

"What's gonna happen?" Michaelangelo said, dangerously close to sobbing.

Raphael raised his voice, shouting "Damn it, Don! You had to take matters into your own hands, now look at ya!"

C-Don examined his counterpart and explained, "You know, I'm betting that I can find something to make him his old self again, you know... like the rest of us. Though I'm not sure what I could do."

Leonardo looked pleadingly into the half-dead Don's eyes. "You have to."

"I guess we better take him to our lair then," C-Leo spoke.

Renet popped in to say, "There's just one tiny problem with that. You see, the timestream is beginning to overlap dimensions too much. If the eight of you stay in the same place too long, you may end up merging characteristics, and you won't know which reality is which. It's not a safe plan. In Timespeak we would call this a Time Crisis, or a Paradox. In the end, if you get too comfortable in a dimension not yours we may end up only doing exactly what the Shogun was planning."

C-Mike sighed, "She may have a point, dudes. I mean, what if we like started losing our body parts?"

"She means like our personalities, dumb-dumb," C-Raph offered his input.

"I have a suggestion," Splinter said. "Why do I not go with you Turtles in your Donatello's place? I have always wanted to visit another world."

C-Leo himself didn't think it was a good idea. "Master, are you sure you want to do this?"

"Yes. Have faith, my son," Splinter said. "As soon as Donatello has aided his alternate self's recovery, I shall return and he will go back to his world."

Renet smiled and said to the Dimension A Turtles, "Guys, I'll be with Donny every step of the way, looking upon him with the greatest of care."

"Me, too!" Venus shouted. Leonardo, Michaelangelo, Raphael and their counterparts all bid one another their adieus ad Renet opened two separate time holes, one leading Cartoon Earth Splinter and the three Dimension A Turtles home, while the Dimension C Turtles carried Cyborg Donatello into their home.

**

* * *

****Mirage/Image Earth (Dimension A); New York City, December 20TH, 1990 A.D.**

Splinter sat quietly as he continued meditating when the sound of a dimensional gateway opening in the next room woke him. He gathered himself as he went to greet his sons, who had a stunning surprise—Donatello had somehow been replaced by another giant humanoid rat. "My sons, you have been gone for hours. I am glad to see you have made it back safel—who is that?"

The three Turtles, sans Donatello, introduced Splinter to his Dimension C counterpart. "Greetings, Splinter of this reality. Not only am I an alternate version of yourself, but that of your jonin sensei, Hamato Yoshi. Your Leonardo met up with my students."

The other Splinter was enthralled. He kept his emotions in check, for if it was truly standing before him Hamato Yoshi, then standing before him was the man—rat like himself or not—whose death in his own reality had set the Turtles lives in motion for vengeance on both Yoshi and Tang Shen's deaths at the hands of the Shredder. Splinter presumed history had played itself out somewhat differently in this other Splinter's reality, but he would not pry.

"Wicked cool!" Mike giddily added, "We met another Splinter in this other dimension where the Turtles of that dimension have all this cool stuff and—"

"Michaelangelo, please," the elderly Splinter spoke. "Where is Donatello?"

Leo sighed and knelt before his sensei. "Sensei, you see... Donatello was injured drastically in battle, so the Turtles of the world I was in vowed to save him by taking him there into the care of their own Master's place. It, it was the only way, I assure you."

"I see," came the simple response. Thankfully, it was one of understanding.

Raphael had now begun feeling a tad odd having two Splinters in the same place. He asked conversationally, "So, umm, do you like sushi, too...?"

The Yoshi-Splinter of Dimension C nodded happily. "And I take it you feel odd... about my presence here."

"It's not that. I'm just worried. Guys, if Don doesn't make it, well..." Michaelangelo, the two Splinters and Leonardo noticed as a tear seemed to be forming under Raph's good eye. "Dude, he'll be fine."

* * *

**Cartoon Earth (Dimension C); New York City, December 20TH, 1995 A.D.**

The Dimension C Turtles returned quickly, only to realize they hadn't been gone long either. In their Master Splinter's place was the horrific, crippled state of the Donatello from another dimension, the same dimension that the Leonardo they'd met prior to came from. It was that Leonardo who took them to save all reality as they knew it, and didn't know from his future self's destructive fury. But now the Turtles had a new crisis to overcome, saving the life of one of their alternate-reality brothers. "Let's get him into my lab," Don shouted. Mike and Leo each held the cyborg Turtle by the feet as Don and Raph pulled him up by the arms.

"Boy, Donatello, this other you is a lot heavier than his brother, the other me," Leo spoke as they lay the barely living mutant onto a table.

"So, like... now what?" Michaelangelo asked.

"I guess first I should hook him up to my mutation ray. Perhaps I can sustain his life support by using a transfusion like we had with our own past selves."

Raph made a face as he stated, "You know, the one odd thing about that was I had no deja vu when I saw myself like that. I mean, I don't ever remember being taken from the Technodrome into the future and going through the same thing over again."

"Well, Raphael, it's obvious Landor's time machine used a memory-irradification unit installed," Don said. "Yeah... now it makes sense." _Well, about as much as everything else that's happened to us so far,_ he added the mental note.

As Don began hooking wires to himself and his counterpart, the other Turtles decided it best to leave and allow their brother to work in peace. "Hey, Leo, buddy, you sure have been quiet," Raph said to him as they walked through the sewers.

"Yeah, I guess I'm still a little shocked over the fact that it was another me we fought. And he was the same version of me that we met before, only from further ahead in time."

Mike made a grin and said, "I'm just curious as to who that Turtle chick was—she was cute!"

Raphael made a snicker and responded, "Well, I guess the Michaelangelo from her world thinks the same, Michaelangelo."

"Yes but, it's obvious she's not from the same world as the alternate Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles we just met," Leo added.

Mike nodded as he mentioned, "Yeah, cause like I also noticed she looked a lot more bulgy. Not that she looked fat or anything, but you know. She just seemed so different for some reason, kinda like that Slash we met from another reality. Some of those names he said were so familiar, yet there were a couple he said who I don't think we've met."

More questions; few answers.

* * *

**The End of Time (Dimension Null ); July 25TH, 3689 A.D.**

Though a day had elapsed in The End of Time in truth, time would forever stand still in this place regardless.

Venus looked down at the three graves Renet had made for her Council elders that she had come to love as paternal figures. "You will all be missed," Renet said, just as somberly as she did solemnly.

"Renet, may I ask you something?" Renet looked at the Turtle and smiled.

"Of course."

"Of all these different versions I've met of the guys... who would you say is the sweetest?"

Renet giggled and answered "That's a pretty deep question, hon. To me all of them, each and every version of them. Look," she showed Venus a chart that held a long list of names. "These are all the people that the Turtles of each world have known. Some like them exist in all four realms, others merely two or three. But to me, the people who exist in one just of these worlds are the most precious. You, Venus, are the one and only Venus."

The female Turtle—the one and only—smiled as she and Renet watched over their newfound Turtle friends. "I'm glad you showed me what how the Turtles I live with feel about me. Now I have a better understanding for them."

* * *

**Cartoon Earth (Dimension C); New York City, December 21ST, 1995 A.D.**

Just an hour past midnight, the Dimension C Turtles were settling themselves in front of the couch after a long day of practicing. Donatello, who had spent the whole day surgically removing the cybernetic components from his counterpart's body, was exhausted. "So how's the patient, Doc?" Raphael asked, pointing to the recovering ex-cyborg Turtle who lay still in a nearby cot.

"He'll be fine. He's uhh, gonna be pretty groggy after he wakes up, and it's possible he won't remember anything from the point in time he was turned into a cyborg, whenever that was... or will be."

Leo scratched his head as he removed the cover from the other Don's rest. His entire shell was in stitches and his arms were bruised and bandaged up. "So you mean he's gonna look completely like those other Turtles?"

"Well, perhaps aside from some certain characteristics that make him and his brothers different from each other. But there is one odd thing I have to show you."

Taking out a little device Don had, he pressed his thumb to a sensor and the encoding of it made the E.E.G. readout say _DONATELLO._ "Cool dude!" Mike said.

"Yeah, now watch what happens when it reads my counterpart's handprint here." Don took his counterpart's hand and pressed the thumb to the sensor, from which the readout stated _?-DONATELLO-?_

"Uhh, I don't get it," Michaelangelo uttered.

"Well, it's obvious. This is an alternate version of me, meaning we're similar in certain ways as intelligence and strength. However certain aspects can and may be completely opposite."

Suddenly they heard a groan.

"Wow, that didn't take him too long." Raph said as he went ahead and gave Dimension A Don a friendly shoulder shake. "Hey, buddy, you all right?"

"Raphael... is, is that... you?" The Turtle steadily arose and looked at each of his "brothers."

"Michaelangelo, Leonardo! But who—who are _you?"_

Don grinned and answered to his counterpart, "I'm Donatello. Well, okay, I'm a different Donatello, but in a big way we're both Donatello. You don't remember what happened do you?"

A-Don shook his head. "No, the last thing I remember was being shot out of an airplane by Oroku..."

"Shredder?" Leo asked. "But I thought the Leonardo from his world told us he was dead there, just like ours is now."

"Well, Shredder had a bastard daughter named Pimiko... it's starting to come bac—wait, what do you mean _the Leo from my world?_"

The four C-Earth Turtles sat back and said in agreement, "It's a long story."

After a few hours of relaying the events of the past couple days to him, the Turtles set out for the day along with Donatello's counterpart who now wore Raphael's spare red mask and a belt with Don's initial on it. "I don't know you guys, I mean as much as I like those colors, it just seems awkward to me."

The purple masked Don nodded and explained, "I know, pal. Listen, it's just until Renet comes back for you then you can go home and our Master Splinter will return to us."

"I hope he's doing okay, fellas," Leo reminded them as they all went up to the streets where they ran into none other than Bebop with Rocksteady, who now had a hook in place of the hand A-Earth Leonardo chopped off previously.

"Well, well, well... lookie who we found!" the rhino boasted.

"We got us a little score to settle!" Bebop seethed.

"Oh great," Raph groaned.

* * *

**Mirage/Image Earth (Dimension A); New York City, December 21ST, 1990 A.D.**

Splinter of this dimension and his alternate self meanwhile spent the morning with Leonardo watching over New York. "You know, this is not too different from my New York. There are some apparent differences but all in all it seems the same to me."

The other Splinter quietly sighed, "So it is. I am glad you were able to live Hamato Yoshi. But what ever happened to Tang Shen?"

Yoshi/Splinter shook his head in response and told him, "I had no bride. The feud between myself and the Oroku Saki of my world was strictly over the leadership of the Foot Clan, who he made into an army of crime, and then sought further guidance through the vile alien Krang, who sounds like the Utroms you told me about earlier. It was he who provided Shredder the mutagen that was supposed to kill me, not mutate myself and my Turtles as it did."

The other Splinter looked amusingly on as he listened when Leonardo got up and shouted, "Well, me and the guys are going to go spar. Would you like to join us?" Both Splinters nodded.

They entered the training room deep inside the sewers where Michaelangelo and Raphael were already in the middle of a sparring session. The two of them watched one another quietly, armed with merely their bare hands, since after once almost killing Mike in an angry fit, Raph secretly vowed to himself never to aim a weapon at his beloved brothers again. The two tackled each other almost playfully as they wound up tickling each other. "Cut it out, man!" Mike said under his breath.

"Sorry, pal." Suddenly they heard a noise.

"Like, uh... what's that?" Mike asked.

"I dunno, but let's find out."

The Turtles, Splinter and Yoshi/Splinter walked through the sewers up until they came across none other than the ragged form of who they had known as Lord Haa'tan, the Rat King.

"What the hell are you up to?" Raph snapped.

The ragged, disheveled man regarded him with a confused look. "Whatever a Monster is usually up to... today I am the Monster, you see."

"Rat King, is that truly you?" Splinter from Dimension C asked, surprised that this Rat King, too, was different that the one he knew who had hypnotic powers over rats' minds. But it was the Rat King nonetheless.

The Rat King gave pause. "The last time I recall meeting your kind... there was only one mutant rat you had for a master. Now who is this?"

"I am Splinter from another reality," the Yoshi/Splinter calmly answered.

"Ah, so I understand," Rat King nodded. "In that case, be prepared to play."

That moment a skittering horde of rabid rats came chasing them.

"Let's get the heck outta here!" Michaelangelo yelled over the commotion. They ran as fast as they could when a trap door sprung under their feet and they all dropped to a lower level. The elderly Splinter held onto his counterpart.

* * *

**Cartoon Earth (Dimension C); New York City, December 21ST, 1995 A.D.**

Bebop and Rocksteady, who had both apparently escaped in time from the Technodrome's final explosion, had found their quarry. The rhino waved his hooked stump at the Turtles. "Where's that toitle that did this to me? I just want a chance to kick his butt around!"

"He's not here anymore, pal," Raph answered.

"Well, that's too bad, then!" Bebop snorted as he whipped out a chain and began lashing it at them. Michaelangelo quickly took out his grappling hook and subdued the warthog, and surprisingly enough the chain hit him in the face.

"Oww, that smarts!" The less-than-intelligible mutants tucked tail and ran off once again in a roadster that took off into the air.

"Hey, they still have that cruiser the Neutrinos used to own!" Leo pointed.

Donatello from the other dimension shrugged and said, "Oh, I see. Boy you guys sure are a lot more passive than my own brothers. I mean, Raph would go right ahead and kill those two idiots."

"We know, dude," Mike answered.

At that moment a beam of light hit Michaelangelo, Donatello and his counterpart, causing them to vanish. "What the heck was that about?" Raph asked, when suddenly he and Leonardo were ambushed by a couple of goons who were conspicuously running away with bank loot.

"Hey, what're you two supposed to be, Halloweenies!" The Turtles punched them in the guts as police sirens following them came closer.

"Come _on!" _Leo shouted.

"Uhh, Leonardo?" Raph was suddenly pelted unconscious by a jab to the face and Leo with a whack in the forehead. Both were picked up by their assailants and carried off.

**

* * *

****The End of Time (Dimension Null ); July 25TH, 3689 A.D.**

"Whoops," Venus said as the three confused Turtles looked around.

"Hey, how'd we get back here?" Mike asked.

C-Don watched as Donatello happily greeted Renet. "Renet, I haven't seen you in years!"

The Timestress giggled as she said, "It's good to see you again, Cyber Don!"

"Cyber Don?"

"Well, didn't these guys tell you how you were shot from a plane and merged with that merc cyborg, symbiote and all?" the two Dimension C Turtles sighed as Don explained, "We didn't know that."

"Oh, sorry," Renet said. "I'd been giving Venus some, ah, pointers on using time travel techniques. She's the one who brought you back here, and she'll be more than glad to send you back as soon as possible."

"Well, thanks a bunch," Don said "but what about our Master Splinter?"

"Oh, your sensei, sheesh... almost forgot about him. Here, Venus shall take you all back to that Donatello's world and you can find him there. But you must hurry—he and the other Turtles there are in great peril." Venus took the scepter she had been loaned in good faith from Renet as the three Turtles gathered around her. "Godspeed, Turtles!" Renet spoke as the four of them vanished.

Mirage/Image Earth (Dimension A); New York City, December 21ST, 1990 A.D.

Leonardo, Raphael and Michaelangelo found themselves tied to a large wooden shaft aimed at a brick wall. "What's this about?"

"You two shall now become rat food for my faithful pets while your two senseis and I get better acquainted," Rat King said, as he pointed to a cage where the two Splinters sat quietly. Rat King flipped a switch as the wall divided in two revealing a giant crane which began chewing at the shaft. Rat King laughed in amusement.

"You'll never get away with this!" C-Splinter yelled.

"Oh really? And just who's going to stop me?"

"We are, dude!" a voice shouted.

"Michaelangelo!" C-Splinter spoke as he recognized the voice of his own student.

Just as Venus, Mike, Don, and the other Donatello fully materialized again they ran to the rescue. C-Mike and Venus attacked the Rat King while C-Don jammed his bo-staff into the crane's power generator just as it came seconds away from devouring the Turtles.

"Hey, it's Venus!" Michaelangelo shouted.

"Yeah, and that's your other self from that dimension I visited," Leo added.

"Is that our Don?" Raph asked looking at the bandaged-up Turtle.

"Hey guys, long time no see, huh?" Donatello laughed as he freed his brothers.

"Don... you aren't a cyborg anymore!" Michaelangelo said.

"Yeah, but the sad thing is I remember nothing about that. Though... come to think of it, I suppose that's actually a good thing, isn't it? And I have myself from another world to thank for it."

C-Don grinned as he said "Well, hey, you would do the same for me, I guess."

Donatello nodded and answered "Well, sure, I mean... I _am_ you. Kinda spooky isn't it?"

"Yeah, what say we celebrate and go get us a pizza!" C-Mike suggested. "Or... beer, or whatever you guys have in your dimension."

"No, I must return you three to your home!" Venus protested, the voice of reason. The Dimension C Splinter rejoined the Michaelangelo and Donatello of his world while the other Splinter rejoined all four of his.

"So, I guess this is where our paths disperse once and for all," the Splinter native to this dimension spoke.

"I believe so," the other Splinter answered.

"Good luck to all of you."

"Same to you." Venus opened the portal leading them home as the Dimension A Turtles all waved their final goodbyes.

**

* * *

****Cartoon Earth (Dimension C); New York City, December 21ST, 1995 A.D.**

Leo and Raph wound up face down in the middle of an alleyway. "Where'd those punks run off to?" Raphael exclaimed in annoyance.

"I don't know, but we gotta do something," Leonardo answered.

They walked around and noticed that they had been taken to the water district. "I wonder if that other you's theory about killing had a good point to it?" Raph said with a smirk.

"Now, Raphael, just because there's another universe out there where we feel the right to being that vicious, it doesn't mean we need to act the same way. Besides you saw how he had that one hand of his taken off, and his brother Donatello told you about how their 'Raph' wound up losing an eye."

"I know, but does it mean that could happen to us if we tried it?"

"I'm not sure, but I'm hoping it never does. And that's why we stay the way we are."

Suddenly a guard came in and the two Turtles positioned themselves to attack. Only it turned out the guard was Caswalt, Shredder's brother. "Hey, guys. Fancy seeing you here."

"Hi, Lieutenant Saki!" Leo said.

"You guys did a good job foiling that robbery. We tracked those guys down right when we saw you being kidnapped."

"Oh, so everything's okay now? All fine'n dandy?"

"Not exactly. See there's a bomb in there and we gotta get it out quick or else the whole dock'll explo—" the cop was interrupted by the temporal disturbance of the time hole from which Mike, Don, Splinter and Venus came.

"Hey, guys, miss us?" Leo gave Splinter a hug and said, "It's good toy see you again, Master Splinter."

"As I am to see all of you. Now that we are together again, the alternate universes we live in are once again fully balanced."

"Yeah, a real Balance to the Force or something. Except her," Don said, pointing to Venus. "I hate to interrupt, but this place is seconds from blowing up." No sooner did he say it than—**KABOOM!**

Hours later the Turtles sat in the sewer den, each wrapped in bandages. Ironically Leonardo had his hand wrapped up as did Raphael's eye, and Donatello's shell. Michaelangelo and Venus were the only two unharmed by the blast which crippled the dock and caused them to fall into the water along with Splinter while the others were covered in debris. "Well, guys, I'm sorry I wasn't much help there."

"Aw, it's okay," Don said.

"Yeah, we just had never felt this much pain before," Leo groaned.

"So, are you staying or not, dudette?" Mike asked, grinning.

"You know, where I come from the Michaelangelo I know always calls me annoying things like _babe_ or _mutant hottie_. But _dudette_, I do not find offensive," Venus said, laughing.

"Yeah, I guess I'm the only Michaelangelo in the galaxy who knows how to be a charmer then!"

Raphael made a knowing snicker and said, "Sure you do!"

"I really like you guys, but for some reason I miss the Turtles I was mutated with in so much more of a... fond sense. I know they can be rude at times, but they can't help it."

Leo shrugged and said, "Do what you feel is right, then. If you can find one good reason to go back, then so be it."

Venus got up and looked at Leo, his eyes wide like the courageousness of the Leo she knew so well. "You are quite right. Thank you, Leonardo." She took her time staff and prepared herself. The four Dimension C brothers waved to her as she vanished yet again.

**

* * *

****Live-Action Earth (Dimension B); New York City, December 21ST, 1997 A.D.**

Dusk approached as the Leonardo of this dimension quietly sat, pondering to himself if he'd ever see Venus again. He had talked with his brothers earlier about the possibilities that lay before them from knowing her, how it meant their legacy could be continued. But alas, they were alone once again.

"I don't know what to do about you, Mei Pieh Chi, but if you do ever return, I swear I'll be more in touch with you. And... I-I'll always make sure you're safe with us."

All of a sudden he heard a familiar feminine voice say in a soft tone of voice, "Thank you."

Leo reeled around in amazement to see Venus, his Venus, wrapping her arms around him. "Venus, how did yo—"

"Shhh," she spoke, laying a gentle finger across his lips. "I'm glad to see you, Leonardo... the Leonardo I love in a way I am no longer afraid to hide. You have no idea how much I know now about you; how much I understand." She gave Leo a kiss and he began to blush.

Both of them started giggling which alerted Raphael, who had snuck in from the outside to see what was happening. The sight of the two embracing each other made him feel extremely happy. "Aw—it's a Kodak moment!" he chimed in.

Fade to black...

**

* * *

****Earth (Dimension Null ); Los Angeles, CA, December 2ND, 2000 A.D.**

_"Whoosh! Kaboom! Whuht... _no!"

Leonardo startled himself awake, not even consciously realizing the words he was shouting. He was disoriented, confused as he found himself wrestling with some green bedsheets on the wooden floor beside a queen-sized bed. He fought and wrenched against the sheets, finally freeing himself.

"What the..."

Leonardo's eyes turned to his hands. He had two hands... but moreover... he had five fingers on each small hand.

Human hands.

A now-familiar lady in her forties burst into the quaint-enough bedroom, further startling Leonardo. She jabbed a finger in his general direction, angrily shouting, "Leon! What are you doing?"

"Look, I—"

"You're going to be late for school! What do you think this is, Christmas Break?"

"No! I need to—"

"What you _need_ to get dressed and get ready for school, mister!" With that, the lady turned and left, slamming the bedroom door behind her.

He found himself once again an eleven year-old boy, was left alone once again to his private thoughts and ruminations. Was it truly all just a dream? Where did the dream end and the reality begin?

Leonardo could no longer be certain.

And now, we come to the end. Maybe this is the right ending, yet maybe it isn't. Or what if it was the ending of the final chapter that was meant to remain, all dimensions save A left in oblivion? Perhaps... all will be moot, come the day of Deliverance that is said to lie in wait...

_The transcension continues... _in the end, when everything is said and done, what do we truly have left to hold onto? Whatever your answer is, cling to it with a passion ; cling to it with your heart and soul.

* * *

_To be continued in **"Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles : Deliverance"**_

* * *

_Author/Editor's Note : This coda is added as an alternate direction the continuation of the core storyline could have taken. For confusion's sake, only consider the first and final scene in this chapter as actually happening within the main storyline -- the rest just a dream of Leon/Leonardo._

Credits for "Transcension" :

**Prologue : Dawn "Dawnatello" Coll  
Chapter 1 : Andrew "NeoDevilbane" Modeen  
Chapter 2 : Dawn "Dawnatello" Coll  
Chapter 3 : Andrew "NeoDevilbane"Modeen  
Chapter 4 : Jeff "Jephael" Oughton  
Chapter 5 :Andrew "NeoDevilbane"Modeen  
Chapter 6 : Sharon "Horseturtle" Lee  
Epilogue: Andrew "NeoDevilbane" Modeen  
Coda : Jeff "Jephael" Oughton**


End file.
